MOE - Settle Your School Fees.

MOE is not wrong you know. It is the procedurally justified thing to do. 

You don’t pay, you don’t get your original PSLE result; just a copy. 

So, pay up, and we will hand over your original results slip. That’s the “longstanding practice” of MOE.

But how much is owed? 

Well, the child’s parents owed the school $156.00 of unpaid school fees (which a Good Samaritan had recently settled). So, the child did not get the original PSLE results, which was released last Thursday. 

This is what MOE has to say: -

“MOE’s consideration stems from the underlying principle that notwithstanding the fact that the cost of education is almost entirely publicly funded, we should still play our part in paying a small fee, and it is not right to ignore that obligation, however small it is. We hope parents support us in reinforcing this message.”

In a nutshell, that is the self-reliance rule of our welfare-adverse state. This withholding practice runs across our tertiary institutions/universities too. If you don’t settle your school/tuition fees, you don’t get your original examination results - period. 

This is not the first case a child’s exams results were held back for outstanding school fees.

In another case, as reported by Amelia Teng, a single mother of three children said “her twin boys received notice from their school last month that they would not be able to collect their N-level examination results slip as they each owed $310 in school fees.” 

The mother said “she has not been able to afford school fees for the past four years.”

After all said, is MOE too rigid, inflexible? Doesn’t MOE have a point? And it is really about doing your part to pull your strap up to the educational horse that the state has provided for you, right? That is all that is needed, that is, just play your part. How hard can that be? 

As MOE puts it, “we should still play our part in paying a small fee, and it is not right to ignore that obligation, however small it is. We hope parents support us in reinforcing this message.”

Honestly, when I read the post, and the numbers of negative remarks that have gone viral ”trying to call into question the intention and values of MOE”, I felt at first that we are not a very understanding people. 

Can’t we give MOE a break? They are just doing their job. Didn’t they say that that is a long-standing practice? It is about mutual empowerment, and not an unconditional handout, while you sit on your hands doing nothing. 

Mind you, it is a meritocratic horse we are running since independence, and you better wise up to pull yourself up before you can have a chance to ride it. 

Yet, at this juncture, I am reminded of Prof Teo You Yenn’s “differentiated deservedness”. 

That is a long word, but it is basically a Trojan-horse-like prejudice against the disadvantaged as a result of the unintended consequences of public policies that lead to the “ghettoization of the problem of poverty.”

Prof Teo wrote that the poor will always be known as “the needy”. And this “way of framing the problem of poverty isolates it” - recall “ghettoization” - and it “detaches the issues and challenges faced by a small minority of the population from those faced by everyone else. It dislodges the issue of poverty from the broader political economy in which it is produced. Importantly, it frames public interventions as “charity”, as “help”.””

In a consumerist society like ours with one of the highest income and social inequalities, being poor is not just a label, but a sentence, a social sentence. 

You are shown little or no respect and dignity. You live in a world of your own, isolated and ghettoized, one in which you are constantly seen as someone who is always in need, always needy, always asking for help, always bothering others with your financial problems. 

Is it then any wonder that the poor and homeless, who are struggling to make ends meet, are jaded, demoralised, and some are even dehumanised?

Sadly, I dread to think how their children who have innocently inherited this social stigma will overcome the ”differentiated deservedness” shown to them, not just by their richer classmates, but by the society at large, which incidentally offers conditional handouts only if they (in their impoverished state) do their part, however small. 

Yet, small is an understatement because to the wealthy, what is $156 or what is $310 (owed over four years)? That is what their children get as school allowance for a day or two. 

But for the poor, those who are struggling to pay the bills, worrying about whether they can keep their job, being abused in a marriage that they see no way of getting out, fearing that the banks will come with lawyers’ letters, and/or feeling that they have been a big disappointment to their children, $156 or $310 is everything to them. 

So, going back to MOE’s rationale, they can’t really be faulted. Rules are rules. They are just enforcing them. 

In fact, there are many social schemes for those who need help. All they have to do is ask and show up, play their part. Differentiated deservedness or otherwise, poverty is not a handicap right? 

And withholding results, reminding the child (who had worked hard for six years under trying circumstances) that their parents owe the state, is the least they can do right?

So, where do you lay the blame then? Or should you even bother? Does it help? 

Alas, the problem with a deeply divided, unequal and stratified state, however democratic, world class or efficient, is that it adds a layer of complexity to the saying, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” (Gandhi).

The key verb here is “treats”. Because we can always do charity, showing our good side, relieving the burdens of those left behind, but the dark side of altruism is how we never let the poor forget how generous and magnanimous we can be. 

And I end with what MOE said - “We hope parents support us in reinforcing this message.” 

But then, who will reinforce the message the poor has been trying to tell the rich and their leaders for the longest of time? Mm...I guess that shouldn’t be their problem?