Time to negotiate Singapore’s meritocracy? Getting ready for the future of work and education

ABSTRACT

Singapore has prospered since independence by developing its human resources under a distinctly Singaporean meritocratic system. Recent developments in public discourse, and findings from interviews with leading Singaporean personalities, however, point towards the system’s increasing undesirability. Among other problems, our study participants blame the system for worsening class divisions in society; for damaging the mental well-being of students; and for leading to a narrowing of society’s definitions of success while leaving Singaporean workers unprepared for challenges of the future economy. Our paper shows that for Singaporeans to be ready for these challenges and to find purpose and meaning in the future economy, the current meritocratic systems require reform. We argue for a new kind of political decision-making to allow Singaporean society to reorder its basic values and priorities towards a more democratic, inclusive and compassionate meritocracy.

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• meritocracy
• purposeful education
• future of education
• future economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education Singapore [grant number PG 06/19 JAA].