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Abstract
This paper explores the process of transnational institutional matching between elite institutions in Singapore and Great Britain, and the role of state-sponsored scholarships in enabling this process as political and administrative elites are selected and groomed. Using data gathered from in-depth interviews conducted with Singaporean undergraduates studying at Oxbridge and a dataset of the institutional origins of 580 Singaporean government scholars, the analysis illustrates how students are being matched from two Singaporean junior colleges to Oxbridge and back to the higher strata of the Singaporean Public Service. We show that the educational trajectories of these government scholars need to be addressed in relation to the informational capital acquired in specific elite schools as well as the governing roles these individuals are meant to obtain within the state upon graduation.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of British Journal of Sociology of Education as well as Vincent Chua, Terence Chong, Mikael Börjesson, Takehiko Kariya, Andrew Brown and Robert Aman for comments and advice on earlier drafts.
Notes
1. Or recent criticisms from educators and researchers regarding Programme for International Student Assessment’s measurement procedures and test validity, as documented in an open letter: http://oecdpisaletter.org/.
2. Later translated into English as The State Nobility (Bourdieu Citation1996).
3. The database was gathered from information retrieved, in December 2012, from the website of the governmental agency that is responsible for disbursing government scholarships (www.psc.gov.sg).
4. Sitting for the ‘A’-levels or International Baccalaureate examinations is the common route to take for students in Singapore if they intend to pursue a university education. Note that the PSC scholarships are not the only types of scholarships for higher education available in Singapore. Other sources of sponsorship can come from statutory boards, banks or private institutions. This paper only focuses on PSC scholarships as they are deemed to be the pinnacle of scholarships in Singapore.
5. Forty-seven per cent of the 580 scholars studied in the United Kingdom over the last 10 years. The next popular destination is the United States at 34%.
6. Ten per cent of the 580 scholars went to Oxford and 11% to Cambridge in the last decade.
7. Besides the qualitative observations and quantitative analysis of the dataset compiled, other secondary sources drawn from include the analysis of documents used by elite schools to prepare students for Oxbridge admissions, information on scholarship selection processes and speeches made by Singapore’s administrative and political elite on the topic of scholarships.
8. There is no fixed quota for the number of scholars selected every year. But to give a sense of success rates: out of the approximately 15,000 students in the graduating A-level and International Baccalaureate cohorts annually, 2000–3000 students apply for the scholarships and less than 100 scholarships are eventually awarded (<0.7% of each cohort).
9. Bourdieu came to use the concept of ‘informational capital’ as synonymous to the embodied, objectified and institutionalised dynamics of cultural capital, at times preferring the wider generality of the former notion (see especially Bourdieu and Wacquant Citation1992, 199).
10. As of December 2012.
11. Barr and Skrbiš (Citation2008, 197) similarly point out the lack of information and resources available within non-elite schools in Singapore about government scholarship applications.
12. Capitalization in original text: http://tertiaryeducation.wiki.hci.edu.sg/file/view/Oxbridge+applications+2011+(July+2011+smb+upload).pdf (accessed May 21, 2013).
13. A very common back-up plan or worst-case scenario for these students was to stay on in Singapore and pursue a degree in a well-established programme like Law at the National University of Singapore. This could be likened to what Abbott (Citation2007, 16) described as the ‘subterranean, lurking rationality, embodied in the historically ancient satisficing concept of the “safe school”’.
14. From this analysis, we also learn that one-third of Cabinet ministers went to Raffles or Hwa Chong Institution, and one-third went to Cambridge for undergraduate studies. Two others were Colombo Plan Scholars (these scholarships were disbursed by the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to students from ‘developing’ countries, pre-1990s). See Appendix 1 for full descriptive table of their educational trajectories.
15. Governmentality (or ‘la gouvernementalité’ as introduced by Foucault) can be read here as simultaneously addressing a body of government and certain modes of thought that are dominant in administrating any given population. See also Appendix 1.
16. To be sure, there are numerous questions still to be explored in the case of Singapore. One being the degree of selection power of the scholarship system itself: do scholars stay in the state administrative service after serving their bonds? Do they take on leadership titles within other policy-making organs and what are their more exact positions within the administrative, political and legislative bodies of the state? Also, how do the experiences of students studying in the United Kingdom differ from, say, those who studied in elite colleges in the United States?