I have always been curious about Tunku Kurshiah College (TKC to the older folks and KTK to the younger folks) after a friend of mine from primary school, got admitted into the school. Although I have forgotten how she looked like (I have a vague recollection of some studious looking kid in a headscarf), I can still remember her name. Until today I still sometimes wonder what had happened to her and if she had found success in life.
Although I was too young to understand it at the time, my mother told me that TKC was a premier school for girls in our country. It was to the girls like MCKK was to the boys. Now that was another school that I had never heard of before then but would feature prominently in my future life as people I knew started going to MCKK (or MC Gay Gay as it is affectionately known by the other boarding school students).
So, seeing that I was in Seremban recently driving along Jalan Tunku Kurshiah, I decided to pop in for a visit. So, I drove up to the school and asked the guard if I could just go in for a visit. It was afterall a Sunday and I knew where all the boarding school students went on a Sunday afternoon. So, it should be fairly safe for me to nose around an all-girls secondary boarding school without rousing any nasty suspicions.
So, the guards who guarded the school asked me “kenapa? bekas pelajar ke?” (why? are you a former student?). Man, I was stunned for a couple of seconds as I wondered if I looked like I was a former student of an all-girls secondary boarding school. Anyway, my friend mentioned that we had come from afar to visit the school, all the way from Kuala Lumpur (smart move!) and the guards decided to let us in after signing the log book. So, we signed the log book and took a drive around the school.
The thing that struck me about the school was how small it actually was. I would have imagined a premier boarding school to be much bigger. The whole of TKC would have probably fitted into the sports field of my secondary school. Then, I realised that the size probably worked to its advantage by maintaining a forced exclusivity. There just wasn’t any room available to take in anyone who wasn’t the best of the best.
The next thing that struck me about the school was that my friend, didn’t even know about it’s exclusive status. Well, I can probably blame that on the fact that my friend came from a Chinese school and didn’t have any other friends who went there or even applied to attend there. She did remember that the girls from TKC always seemed to be very smartly dressed with their headscarves all done up when attending competitions.
Then, on our way out, some of the girls started returning to school from home and they were all being driven in by BMWs and the like. So, I can safely surmise that most of the kids from that school were probably from families much richer than mine (nobody in my family ever drove a BMW). I have nothing against that as I strictly believe that there is no such thing as meritocracy in this world. There is no point in having wealth if you cannot use it to better your childrens’ lives.
Anyway, that’s all for my post.
Sybreon Ones Nought 
sorry, i was just wondering if you could expand on the statement about not believing in meritocracy.
I’ve blogged a little about it earlier. The essence is that meritocracy is impossible.
hhmmmm….for some reason i forgot that i read that. it is true that you can’t divorce a persons achievement from their upbringing (i.e.: wealth) and well, their natural born talents (i.e. genes) . however i believe that it is a mistake to accuse true meritocracy of being absent. you are confusing being fair with how meritocracy works. no one has ever accused meritocracy of being a system to promote justice, meritocracy solely exist to ensure that the best person is picked for the job.
in the case of scholarship disbursement, it is well silly that the government should dispense scholarships based on the sole criteria of 10A1’s or whatever is currently the criteria.
Meritocracy i suspect was contrived due to the natural progression of ruler’s children into rulers themselves- not always the best system. Meritocracy should not be reviled because it is unfair, we must separate fairness from meritocracy. On another note, being born with good genes ( intelligence) is not always the sole determinant of success, many gifted people squander their intelligence. Part of the point is that meritocracy is a system which ignores that you might be born gifted, but is purely base on what you have achieved or failed to achieve as it might be.
Oh, that was precisely my point in the other blog. Meritocracy and fairness are different things. But my take is a bit more extreme, i.e. since meritocracy is impossible, let us just focus on fairness instead, which seems to be what most people are after in the case of scholarship disbursements. Then, fairness again is another problem. Anyway, I’ve got another blog entry coming up on scholarships. Just need to iron out a few more kinks in it.
not trying to be irritating here or anything, but thats what i dun get, meritocracy is entirely possible even in scholarship disbursements, granted it needs to be tempered with fairness but it is still entirely possible and should in fact be one of the main criterias but on both accounts you have claimed meritocracy is impossible
“I have nothing against that as I strictly believe that there is no such thing as meritocracy in this world.”
and that’s what i really do not get. especially since the sentences preceding that was the very embodiment of meritocracy. meritocracy might not be fair, but it is the best way to run things, less you give things to people who never deserve it and will not be grateful for it either.
as an aside to all this, to level a playing field, you don’t deny people rewards for their hard work or the fact that they come from rich families and can afford tutors which actually still requires hard work on their part, but thats not the point. the point is that to level the playing field, you should provide, within reason, what they might lack. better libraries for a better studying environment, and access to books, better teachers and etc. you can’t deny someone on the basis that they come from a richer family or are more intellectually gifted.
Your definition of meritocracy is different from mine and is different from what other people mean when they use it. For example, you define meritocracy as selecting the best person for the job. That is an ambiguous definition as “best” is not and can never be unambiguously defined.
The dictionary definition means selecting a person based on his abilities and not his genes or wealth. However, a person’s ability can never be divorced from his genes or wealth. So, by selecting based on ability, one is also selecting based on genes and wealth and this contradicts the second part of the definition.
Yes, and thats precisely where I don’t agree with you. And this is not something which can be settled simply based on a matter of opinion.
The best person to fill the job is measured based on hid qualifications and his ability to fit the job description, this might ir might not be academic in nature. The only reason I use best, and yes there is a perfectly non-ambigious way to define this because corporations do it all the time, it’s call a job description. I use best only in the sense that this is a general term and applies broadly, so that I do not have to go into specifics.
Meritocracy is by definition the very antithesis of nepotism and is not a system of running things based on an arbitary sense of equality or fairness. It means basically that, I do not give someone a job just because he is so and so datuks son ( this of course never happens in real life largely due in part to the corruption which is rife in Malaysia but even then anywhere in the world being well-connected is always a boon and perhaps also because it fits the job desciption of finding new customers and even then if he is unable to perform, meritocracy dictates that he be kciked off). It also means that just because you are the son of a king, you do not automatically become king yourself, mostly because, you might not be the best person for the job, or someone else might make a better king than you.
While it is true that you can never really separate someones ability from either genes or wealth. It is also true that no amount of wealth can force you to study or absorb information, that is entirely up to you. Wealth can buy you resources such as teaching time, books or whatever, but it can’t force you to study, that comes form yourself. (this is why I argue that the government should provide better facilities and a much better system of vetting teachers to level the playing field.) This applies equally to genetic endowments as well. Unless of course if you are predisposed to being a sportsman/woman which actually come to think about it would be the place where meritocracy is best exemplified.
In any event, the influences of genes and wealth diminishes as you grow older, unless of course you are swimming in wealth in which case why the hell bother working.
To reiterate, Meritocracy does not assume that everybody is born equal, that would be entirely foolish, meritocracy simply states that the best qualified person be chosen. “….not because of their wealth or birth “, this is not meat to be an assumption that everybody is born equal, this exist simply as because meritocracy is the very opposite of nepotism.
You don’t know me, that’s why we are having this discussion.
I am used to dealing in context free and unambiguous languages. Therefore, when confronted with something that I do not understand fully, I will usually seek the clear definition.
You are obviously a person who has no problem when someone asks you for a spoonful of rice. You will just give them a spoonful of rice. I am someone who will stop and ask them to define “spoonful” because I have no idea how much rice that is. “Spoonful” of rice is not unambiguous.
With regards to job descriptions.
Even a full job description is not a clear definition. For example, it can say that “candidate must possess English skills”. However, it does not specify what kind of skills and for what sort of usage. You may think that the rest of the job description will help to clarify the needs and requirements but it is the nature of job descriptions to be open ended (and ambiguous) in order to attract a larger pool of applicants.
And we all know that ultimately, getting a job is about having the right connections. Almost all jobs end up going to someone who was recommended in by someone else within the organisation. Rarely does an open hire end up with the job.
Now back to the issue of meritocracy.
“Meritocracy is the antithesis of nepotism” – not true. According to your definition, being the son of a king is usually a job requirement for king. Hence, the “best” fit for the job would be the son. It is after all, a job requirement. Let us look at a the shining example of just such a meritocracy, Singapore, which practices nepotism at the highest level.
Your definition for meritocracy will always be subjective because it depends on being the “best” fit for a job description that is never a constant. Even being king has a changing job description. It could be a warrior king (brawn) because they have battles to fight. It could be a just king (brain) because there is corruption that needs to be wiped out. So, in your case, “best” is a moving target.
The word “best” can never be a fixed definition. The “best” candidate today may be the “worst” candidate tomorrow. That is why I say “best” can never be defined unambiguously as it is as much a function of time as it is a function of all the criteria involved in the selection. If it has a clear definition, the “best” person for the job should always a constant (i.e., if there are 10 people today that fit the job, the same 10 people only, should still fit the job 10 years from now).
Hope this clears the air.
I am really sorry if I am taking time away from anything else but I just can’t seem to let it go. (very bad, I know). You are entirely right, a spoonful of rice is a spoonful of rice to me.
Yup, getting a job is also about having the right connections, don’t deny that either. Nothing wrong with that, especially if the person is sufficiently qualified anyway.
Now we get to the fun part, being the son of a king is not a job requirement for king, being able to lead and run the country is, however, a job requiement. Actually, leaders of countries are a whole different ball game, a can of worms not entirely fun to open, mostly because I don’t agree with democracy but lets put that aside.
Unfortunately, Singapore is a poor example of anything. If it practices nepotism it is by definition anything other than meritocratic, despite any claims to the contrary. I think a more accurate example would be the world of sports, where talent (genetic endowment) is all that matters, and at the very top tier determination becomes what separates first and second place. In the world of sports, you are not given any special treatment if you are the son of so and so famous tennis player if you can’t even hit straight. And if you are good, no matter, how poor you are, people will be dying to sponsor you. So the determinant of sucess becomes your talents.
I don’t deny that best is a moving target, and in your words it is indeed a fuction of time and whatever criteria is involved in the selection, and that is precisely the reason I refuse to enter into specifics with my definition of best. In any event, one would hope that a person has sufficent adaptability, or in a corporation, they can be moved from one department to another or if no longer necessary, terminated. In any event, if the job function is likely to change much, one would hope adaptability be a main criteria as well. And precisely in the sense that “best” need not be a constant, it changes according to what best fits the job. So precisely, if we need a “warrior” king, we should be able to pick one and not be stuck with the son of the king not just because he is the son of the king.
It is unfortunate, but it is near impossible to avoid that particular phrase to which we just can’t seem to agree with when giving meritocracy it’s definition. It is also unfortunate that wikipedia is treating democracy as a simple game of popularity, and treating meritocracy as a system of government only when it can be applied universally. But meritocracy does exist as an antithesis to nepotism and it’s ilk.
Singapore overestimates the importance of academic achievement. I was trying to figure out what you meant by singapore practising nepotism at its highest level, and now I understand. God, I am so slow on the uptake sometimes. I think that singapore as a system of government is more and more like a Lee dynasty than anything remotely resembling democracy. By extension, I suspect singapore practices cronyism as well, something which i am sure it largely denies.
I’m not sure I get your point this time. Sorry! d:
It’s okay, I can’t continue anyway. Some unexpected problems cropped up, which I shall take great joy in handling.
I do however, appreciate and greatly admire you taking the time to read what I write. And I think its a wonderful quality.