EDUCATION POLICY ON ADMISSIONS AND STREAMING

Dr Tan Cheng Bock asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education if he will assure the House that his Ministry's latest policy of admission to schools of their choice for graduate mothers, together with the policy of streaming students into Normal, Express, Special and Gifted streams will not eventually lead to the development of a class system in Singapore.

Dr Goh Keng Swee: Mr Speaker, Sir, no one can give the assurance the Member is seeking. Indeed, I doubt whether any education policy can prevent the development of a class system in Singapore or elsewhere. To be quite candid, I doubt whether it is possible to have a classless society which, I assume, is what the hon. Member regards as the ideal Singaporeans should try to achieve. I can, however, assure him that any identifiable class that may emerge will not be the result of the priority scheme. In a meritocratic society such as we have in Singapore, the children of graduate women are likely to be high performers and many will be at the top ranges of society, regardless of any entrance priorities or streaming in schools.

Two great thinkers of the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, believed that a classless society was not only desirable but also inevitable. This classless society could be achieved by the destruction of the capitalist system which, they said, was a system under which man exploited man. With the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the ruling class of capitalism, exploitation of man by man would end. Everybody would be equal. True freedom would then be achieved under which, and I quote the Marxist bible, "the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all". Grand ideals, fine rhetoric!

Capitalism has been overthrown in many countries - in the Soviet Union, in Eastern Europe, in the Peoples' Republic of China and in Vietnam. Has the classless society emerged there? If anyone believes this has happened, let him go there and see it for himself.

As an economic phenomenon, a class system will arise when incomes earned in different occupations are not equal. It will also arise, if Professors Eysenck and Jensen are correct and parents pass on their genes to their children.

No one has devised a system under which a primary school teacher earns as much as a doctor or a research scientist no more than his laboratory assistant. So economic inequalities exist. What is important is not that they exist but how they come about.

If high incomes are earned through merit in free and fair competition, as in Singapore, no one can say that a class system that results from unequal incomes is necessarily bad. It is only when high incomes are derived from privileges based on nepotism, political connection or corruption, that the system is to be condemned.

Now, I come to the specific points raised by the Member. As regards streaming, the rationale for this is generally well understood, except perhaps by the Member himself. I need not say more than that its purpose is to help the slow-learners who cannot cope with the rate of teaching which had hitherto been geared to the brightest, that is, those who can make the grade to 'A' levels in 12 years. As for the gifted programme, this is not a Singapore innovation. We follow the example of others such as the United States, Israel and, of all countries, the Soviet Union.

The preference in school admission given to graduate mothers has generated much unhappiness, and understandably so. In a democracy, everyone wants to be treated alike and where a group is singled out for preferential treatment, strong reasons must be advanced.

Why do we give preference to graduate mothers? The subject has been made sensitive because some people mistakenly believe that it is inspired by the conviction that only clever people can breed clever children. In fact, the President of the NUS Students' Union wrote to my Minister of State earnestly pointing out that it is untrue that only clever people breed clever children. No one can dispute this.

Let me give Members what the Shell people call a "helicopter vision" of the problem. This is necessary because, viewed in isolation, the policy makes no sense. The root of our trouble is that while we have made enormous strides in economic modernization and in standards of living, our social customs and habits have not kept pace. The young Singapore woman who writes computer programmes is as competent professionally as her Western counterpart. Yet her attitudes on what constitutes acceptable norms of social conduct, especially in regard to sex and marriage, are closer to those of her mother than her adventurous Western sisters.

The same holds true of the Singapore male, alas! When it comes to choosing a marriage partner, most display the male chauvinism of traditional oriental cultures. A docile woman is an asset, a highly educated one may be argumentative and this will not make for marital bliss. I need not labour this point.

Now the outcome of such incongruous arrangements - social attitudes lagging behind economic performance - is that in 1983,60% of male graduates marry below their education level. The number of female graduates who do so is negligible.

You may ask, "What is wrong with that?" If you take a short-term and myopic view, there is nothing wrong. The choice of a marriage partner is a personal act and outsiders, especially the Government, should not interfere. The Japanese think otherwise, but I will not pursue this line of argument here.

If you consider the social consequences of current trends remaining unchanged, the results will be horrendous. I am not exaggerating.

Consider these figures. Last year, 60% of the students admitted to NUS were women. Over 2,000 males who qualified for pre-university chose to go to the Polytechnics. If the trend persists and 60% of our male graduates continue to marry below their education level, then only 27% of our women graduates will eventually be married to graduates. Nearly all of the remaining 73% will remain unmarried.

Consider another statistic. Graduate mothers produce nine times the number of gifted children than the general population, graduate fathers, alas, only six times. It does not now matter whether this is the result of nature or nurture, or both. Just calculate the loss to our society if three-fourths of our women graduates, some 2,200 each year, are added to the pool of unmarried. Reflect further on what we are doing.

We educate our girls to the best of their ability, and it is a good thing we do so. But to the top three-fourths, that is, those who enter the NUS, we in fact tell them what Hamlet said to Ophelia, "Get thee to a nunnery". What sort of people are we if we consider such matters to be of no consequence? When the Government first expressed concern over this and sent a team to Japan to learn how the Japanese went about it, the episode provoked much merriment, even among some PAP MPs I regret to say.

We believe that her people are Singapore's only asset. There is not a Minister or MP who has not repeated this almost ad nauseam. If our people are our only asset, the better the quality of future generations, the better our future will be. Especially is this so when outside sources of talented people, from China, India and Malaysia, are no longer as freely available as in the past.

Members will recall that the Prime Minister once pointed out that he was the only Singapore-born person in the top seven in the protocol list. This will no longer be so a generation from now. Singapore must produce her own talented people, mostly on her own. How can we be complacent over a situation when three-fourths of our most talented women are likely to remain single?

Whether Members believe that many children of graduate mothers are talented or gifted through nurture or nature does not affect the issue. The fact that their children are disproportionately over-represented amongst the gifted and the high performer cannot be disputed.

The preference given to children of graduate mothers in school admission is only one of the policy measures the Government has to take. Other changes must be introduced to get the better educated women, both graduates, 'A' and 5 'O' levels, to bear their share of the next generation. The effect could be two-fold. First, we draw attention to the nature and magnitude of our problem. Second, the better educated the woman, the more we must help her to marry and have her children. We must also induce the rational Singapore male to ponder on his wayward past ways and to do better for himself and his children in future.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock: Mr Speaker, Sir, I am sure the First Deputy Prime Minister must agree that this policy is discriminatory. It discriminates against children.

Mr Speaker: Can I have your supplementary question, Dr Tan?

Dr Tan Cheng Bock: Is the First Deputy Prime Minister aware that his policy of priority of admission to schools for children of graduate mothers is discriminatory? It discriminates against children of non-graduates. It discriminates against children of graduate fathers and non-graduate mothers. It discriminates against children of mothers who complied with our sterilization policy by ligating after having two children. And in view of this unfairness to most but 200 Singaporeans, would the First Deputy Prime Minister like to review this policy?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: Sir, I have gone at great length to explain why this policy is necessary. The Member is wrong in saying that those who had sterilized themselves in the past are being penalized. They are not. Under the rules, exceptions are made for them and they retain the status.

As regards the other points that he raised, I think I have fully answered them. If he does not understand what I have said, I am prepared to give the text of my speech to him for him to read carefully and ponder in depth. Then he need not ask unnecessary supplementary questions.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock: Mr Speaker, Sir, the First Deputy Prime Minister is just trying to avoid the issue. With regard to sterilization, the First Deputy Prime Minister must realize that a child takes six years -

Mr Speaker: Can I have your supplementary question, Dr Tan?

Dr Tan Cheng Bock: Yes, I will come to it.

Mr Speaker: Please ask your supplementary question instead of being long-winded about it.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock: I am just trying to ask the First Deputy Prime Minister that he must realize that a child takes six years to grow up, so that having first introduced that policy six years ago, he will only see the fruit of that policy this year.

Mr Speaker: That is not a supplementary question. There is no need for you to answer, Dr Goh.

Mr Tang See Chim (Chua Chu Kang): A supplementary question, Sir. Is the First Deputy Prime Minister aware that in the farewell interview Dr Winsemius said that, accepting the premise as set out by the First Deputy Prime Minister, the implementation is premature?

Dr Goh Keng Swee: I do not think Dr Winsemius said that in such stark terms. He did say that it is a very complicated subject, and that we must pay special attention to the psychological circumstances of the social situation. He also went at great length to explain that if he were a woman and had been educated to a high level of competence, he himself would not marry. And this makes our problem all the more difficult. I would have thought that the Member for Chua Chu Kang, having read what Dr Winsemius said, would direct his efforts all the more to find a solution to our difficulties.

Mr Tang See Chim: Mr Speaker, Sir, perhaps the First Deputy Prime Minister and I were reading different passages of Dr Winsemius' interview. In an interview given-

Mr Speaker: Let us have your supplementary question, Mr Tang?

Mr Tang See Chim: This is a clarification, Sir. The First Deputy Prime Minister said that Dr Winsemius had said that if he (Dr Winsemius) were a highly educated woman, the incentive would not encourage him (or her) to get married. But in another passage, Dr Winsemius did say that -

Mr Speaker: What is your supplementary question, Mr Tang?

Mr Tang See Chim: Accepting that premise as set out by the First Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Winsemius said that it was too premature because we have got universal education only in 1968 or in 1970 and therefore that generation -

Dr Goh Keng Swee: Sir, on a point of order.

Mr Speaker: That is not a supplementary question, Mr Tang. Dr Goh, do sit down.