I don’t blame the principal.
Really.
Is it her fault that schools (and her career) are judged on the basis on how well the students do? Being fair, she’s looking out for herself and her future. This is basic survival instinct for everyone. What then is furor about? That she should be a nice caring principal and encourage the 27 right? True, that would be good to have, but looking at it another way, such educators would find themselves graded lower than educators who discriminate and discourage poorer students, and consequently lose the promotion to the cutthroat bunch. What then? Kind and caring educators would logically not be at the top of the system. The most cutthroat educators, and schools, would rise in the system, attracting better funds and support, get better recognition, better students and so on. The reverse auto-catalytic process happens for schools who do not fare well. The educators are looking out for themselves and for their schools. They are not evaluated as to how many student get to do their best, but how many students do better than those in other schools. Is there something wrong with the system? That depends on what the system is trying to achieve.
Students are just the resource that the school-factories take in. In the grand scheme of things, does the loss of a few units of the resource justify the gain of more? In utilitarian Singapore, it seems to be so. It is surprising that only now is such blatant discrimination reported. Perhaps it is reassuring to know that society is beginning to care about such things. As far as my education spans, poorer students have always been publicly embarrassed for having “unrealistic” dreams, and coerced into giving up for the sake of practicality; both for the school to climb up the rankings, and for the student to aim for what they were more probable to get. So much so that this mentality has become indoctrinated into students themselves. Said one of the 27, “My class is a weak class. Some of the girls may be better off in the ITE.’ So it’s better for them to go to ITE now, then to “waste” a few months to take the chance of going to a poly/JC? Why the rush? Is that amount of time so critical that the possibility of success is forgone? If everyone did what they were likely to get, there would be no success stories, nor any social mobility. Should the focus on results be changed? I do hope so…
