On Assortative Mating.

According to TOC's most recent top story, MM Lee commented that

"you marry a non-graduate, then you worry about whether or not your son or daughter is going to make it to the university"

Part One: Why do Uni Grads Produce Uni Grads?

I think there is a correlation between having parents who are graduates and offspring who attend university. Yes, someone whose parents are graduates will probably be more likely to make it to university. But I don't think the link is as simple as the above comment suggests it to be.

The correlation is probably due to a whole host of reasons. Those I can think of are:

1. Graduates have higher earning power. They are more likely to have the financial ability to send their children for enrichment and tuition courses to help their children where help is needed.

2. Graduate parents, more so than non-graduate parents, know what it takes to make it to university. They understand the rigour of academic pursuit and are also better positioned to help their children in their school work, especially in the early years of education.

3. I'm not very sure about this, but I think graduate parents, because of their higher earnings power, are able to ensure that their school going children have only school work to worry about. In addition, I suspect, but cannot confirm, that problem drinking and gambling occurs to a smaller extent amongst graduates. What all these mean is that the children only have to be concerned with schoolwork at an early age.

4. The child's social circle from the beginning is very important. Reasons 1-3, more than anything, help provide a child with a stable home and an environment in which learning is encouraged and help is easily found at an early age. Singapore's education system places pupils judged to be of similar academic ability together. Even as early as primary 2, the better performing pupils from primary 1 are placed in the same class. Amongst the students in the better classes, there is competition, learning is positively regarded, and doing well is generally desired and perhaps even expected. All these create an environment that pushes the students to carry on doing well. When streaming occurs later, the more motivated ones who have done better mix around with like minded students all the way till JC and beyond.

Anecdote: My mum recently told me about her cousin's daughter who finished O levels in a secondary school in Toa Payoh. The girl was in one of the weaker classes. The girl did not want to study too hard or perform well for she feared she would be ostracised and lose her friends. Towards the O levels, the girl's mum forced her to study very hard. Eventually, she passed her O levels while most of her friends didn't or at least, didn't do as well. The girl, after recieving her results, was angry at her mum for she felt that her results would make her lose her friends.

I'm not sure how common the situation in the above anecdote is amongst the students who have been placed together because they share the common trait of weak academic performance. But it provides a glimpse into the possible reasons why those who do not get a headstart early in life in Singapore will not perform well in school later in life.

Part Two: What should the Government be doing?

I believe that the government's role is to encourage a healthy attitude towards academic performance and improvement in schools.

Is it even necessary to place students who have poor academic results together even at an early age? For most children, their schoolmates form their entire social circle. If all their friends did poorly, it will soon be accepted as the norm, the standard to follow.

If and when it becomes necessary later, in order that those who have better academic results can be pushed harder and challenged, MOE should then be extremely careful not to allow a negative perception of striving for better results amongst the weaker classes.

If Singapore allows those who failed in primary 1 to accept mediocre results the rest of their school years because of those primary 1 results, I think a lot of academic potential would be wasted.


As a side note:
(The following might sound a bit crazy or illogical to some people. Its strictly my own opinion based on personal observation and activity going on in my brain. Disagreements, agreements, comments, welcome.)

A. I think a child with 2 graduate parents have the highest probability going to university for the reasons above.

B. I think a child with 1 graduate and 1 non-graduate parent has the the second highest probability of going to university because the reasons above will still apply, but to a smaller extent.

C. I think a child with 2 non-graduate parents has the smallest probability of going to university because he lacks the advantages explained in Part 1.

I think the probability in A is slightly more than the probability in B, and while the probability in B is much more than the probability in C.

The reason is that I believe the child's attitude from an early age, the environment in which a child grows up in, and parents who understand the importance of education and what it takes to do well in school are most important in determining how well the child does when young, and therefore the company he later keeps. I believe having 1 parent who understands all that and able to communicate all that to his or her partner, places the child in situation B in a much better position than a child in situation B. ("better" here refers only in the very strict sense of likelihood to attain higher education)

Therefore, in order that Singapore can have the largest number of people doing fairly well in school at a later age and the largest number of people with a fair chance of going to university, maybe the best policy for the government is to encourage graduates and non-graduates to marry... each other! It might actually make it tougher to make it to university! And then of course, more might also qualify and go for university overseas! (financial constraints notwithstanding of course.)