A Tale of Two Meritocracies

Here's a bit of a warning: this post is going to read a little like a GP essay, without the sissy er... I mean *cough*objective*cough* stuff like cop-outs er.. I mean balance and contrived opps... I mean wholistic approaches like SPERM, err... I mean PRESM. Or stupid, unhelpful statements like "I agree to a large extent" (as if agreement is both zero-sum and linear).

My impression of Mr.Shanmugaratnam has improved a little now. Just a little... If only because he said this:

"Yours is a talent meritocracy, ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well—like creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority. These are the areas where Singapore must learn from America."

*applauds him*

OK, so why do I applaud? Well, people who know me know I have a thing against school in general and exams in particular... Maybe because of the unspoken acknowledgement of the fact that being good in exams is independent of having any talent whatsoever, and is a horrible benchmark of things like "creativity, curiosity, a sense of adventure, ambition"? I'm glad he knows this. Many people don't.

On a higher level, it is also an acknowledgement that a meritocracy is only as good as its definition of 'merit'. Well in theory, meritocracy is all good and well; we all want individuals to succeed on their merit and their merit alone. But then again, how do you define 'merit'? Is 'merit' quantifiable? What is the distribution of merit like? Can we assume that merit is linear? How do we compare different 'flavours' of merit?

In Singapore, we define 'merit' solely in terms of numbers and papers. Your exam scores. The now defunct PEARLS points. Any good physics student would know that numbers are arbitrary, and of limited value outside a given set of assumptions and pre-defined situations. At most, they can only be taken as a very good approximation of reality.

Even then, exams are very horrible approximations to reality. Especially if you define reality as 'how well as student knows a subject'. First, you have the problem of what is examined. Is a student who knows thermodynamics of chemistry inside-out inherently worse than a student who knows the properties of halogens inside-out? If you address this problem by making the exam more spread out: Is the student who knows a little bit of everything better than the student who knows a lot about a few things? What if there is more than one way to answer the question? You can explain the melting of ice-cream in a thermodynamic, statistical manner, or in a more kinetic, absolutionist manner. You have to take into account so many factors that exams cannot be anything but a very horrible approximation of reality.

In Singapore, these things are not even taken into account (as far as I can see). Not only are there model answers, but also model questions. That is why the TYS is an indispensable asset. It's so much easier to learn model answers to model questions than to understand a subject. In fact, the TYS approach yields far better results (exam-wise) than a conceptual approach, if only because of the factors above. Think about it: Would a person who understands a subject need a TYS? Shouldn't that person score well in the test?

A pure TYS mugger cannot come up with good scientific theories outside the exam. An impure one might, but exam-wise he'd do worse, if only because his efforts are expended elsewhere (like on thinking about science, not the science exam) than purely on the TYS. Assuming that each person has the same amount of effort, and that effort (per unit time) as a resource is finite, of course. But to the meritocracy of the exam, a person is deemed worthy based on score alone. The pure muggers are deemed more meritous than the rest. And they get to do stuff (take stuff as go to university, go on attachments, etc)... the rest don't. The rest are deprived of opportunity, if for no other reason than they are deemed unworthy.

Policy has consequences. That is why, by the yardstick of scientific achievements and entrepreneurship, Singapore fails miserably. Live by the TYS, die by the TYS. Like I said, a meritocracy is only so good as its definition of merit; Singapore has not only a poor definition, but also a poorly executed one at that.

Here comes the fun part: it's very trendy nowadays to point out that we must criticize constructively (regardless of the merit of your criticism). Therefore you should propose solutions, or shuttup. I would first like to say sometimes the problem is systemic, it's hard to 'solve' anything without a complete rehaul of the status quo.

But as Alcoholics Anonymous says: the first step to solving a problem is to acknowledge it. It's a very good first step, so I say one of the first steps to solve this problem, heck, ANY problem is to get rid of that 'constructive criticsm' mentality. How to acknowledge problems if critics shut up? *Overhaul: No.1

The second next step is: if you can't identify and thus exalt people who are of 'desirable' nature, the very least you can do is not get in their way. These people tend to take risks, and with risk, comes mistakes. So, you must learn to forgive. Make it okay to fail. Make it okay to be not perfect. Creativity thrives if you can forgive. *Overhaul: No.2

The third step is: Learn not to take numbers (and other artificial constructs) too seriously. There are 3 types of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. An exam score is a statistic. Rank is a statistic. GDP is a statistic. This comes with the side benefit of people looking deeper at the person behind the number, allowing those with 'talent' to rise. *Overhaul: No.3

The forth step is: Relax. Give people benefit of the doubt. *Overhaul: No. 4

Actually each of these overhauls in themselves would each take an entire post to explain. I can't answer everything in 1 or 2 sentences. The issue is far too complex for that.

I know the title of the post is A Tale of Two Meritocracies, but I have only talked about one, and even then, I haven't addressed half the issues I wanted to address. Maybe some other day (if ever). I'll just leave you with a quote.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way...
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

UPDATE:
Here's Part 2
There's a not-so follow up (about my distaste for pure numbers specifically) to this here.