Bureaucracy, Meritocracy, and Inequality: A Critical Examination of Singapore’s Streaming System

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220105.061How to use a DOI?

Keywords

social policies; sociology; inequality; education; Singapore

Abstract

Once dubbed a great social leveller, Singapore’s education system became the centre of parliamentary debates in 2019. Upon voting, the current streaming system will be replaced by subject-based banding(SBB) in 2024[1]. This subject-based banding means that students can take different levels (G1, G2, G3) of subjects based on their ability. For instance, a student who is weak in English language but exceptional in mathematics might opt for G1 English and G3 mathematics. Such a change reflects the general consensus that streaming hinders the potential of students and that inequality exists in the current education landscape. Therefore, this essay aims to give a theoretical ground to and justification of the scrapping of the streaming system and show that the new SBB system, though promising, is unlikely to solve inequality at its core.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Jiarui Wu
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/01/17
TI  - Bureaucracy, Meritocracy, and Inequality: A Critical Examination of Singapore’s Streaming System
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 323
EP  - 329
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220105.061
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220105.061
ID  - Wu2022
ER  -