PSC Scholars Selection Process: What Can Be Improved?

Berries tan SG

November 16, 2009 by admin
Filed under Opinion

By Low Wei Xiang

An excerpt of the speech given by the Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman, Eddie Teo, in The Straits Times on 5 Nov 09 has brought to limelight the issue of the PSC scholars selection process again.

This time, he highlighted that “most of the current generation of young scholars are responsible and dedicated, but a few have a poor attitude and misplaced expectations”. This is a cause of concern.

Firstly, many of these “young scholars” will go on to assume top governmental positions. Secondly – and this will probably strike a stronger chord with people – taxpayers’ money is used to fund their scholarships costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Thus, it is important that the money goes to the right people who can best serve the country in future, and what improvisations can be made to ensure that this group of people will be selected.

As stated on the PSC website, “the PSC is responsible for the appointment, promotion, transfer, dismissal and exercise of disciplinary control over public officers,” including “selecting and managing PSC scholars…to attract and groom talent for the Singapore Civil Service.”

The PSC scholars selection process is perhaps not well understood by many, but we have to understand what goes on behind the scenes before we can even begin critiquing it. It is no doubt a highly rigorous and almost-flawless process designed to frazzle candidates such that only those who do not break will prove themselves to be capable and deserving.

The process is split into a few stages:

1^st stage: Psychometric Test

The psychometric test examines a candidate’s cognitive ability (in English, Mathematics, logical and visual reasoning) and personality profile, with multiple questions to be completed within a very tight time limit.

2^nd stage: Psychological Interview

Candidates are assessed and profiled by a psychologist for 2 to 3 hours. The interview is mostly reflective and introspective in nature, requiring them to evaluate their personal traits, relationships, situations and experiences. The psychologist’s report is then submitted to the interview committee.

3^rd stage: Panel Interview

Facing as many as 10 interviewers from all walks of life, candidates are assessed on practically anything and everything – current and governmental affairs, controversial and ethical issues, policy making, personal ambitions, or even grilled on glaring inadequacies in their portfolios. Some questions no doubt deliberately put candidates on the spot so that their reactions can be gauged; others intend to fill in the missing jigsaw pieces of a candidate which the previous stages have failed in piecing.

These, coupled with academic results, school transcripts, Co-Curricular Activity (CCA) and Community Involvement Project (CIP) reports, paint an almost complete picture of every candidate and leave little room for doubt when it comes to selecting the scholars.

The PSC should be lauded for its extremely thorough and intensive selection process, sparing no expenses in ensuring that nation’s best, brightest, and most suitable will be chosen for government service. Only Singaporean citizens or Permanent Residents who will take up citizenship before leaving for studies are eligible for application.

One question should be asked – despite the extensive selection process, why, at the end of it all, do some scholars turn up “flawed”, as brought up by Mr. Teo? What went wrong and what can be improved?

In addition, as provider of one of the most prestigious government scholarships, PSC should have a responsibility and be accountable in ensuring that the playing fields are leveled for candidates as much as possible, such that – in line with our value of meritocracy – no candidate is denied a scholarship because of disadvantages he faces. Has PSC done so?

A closer probe into the system, however, and cracks will surface:

Common gripe: Financial inequalities and debunking it

A perennial issue about the selection of PSC scholars is that of financial inequalities. It is known that candidates from more affluent backgrounds tend to do better academically or have stronger portfolios because of a host of reasons including being able to afford private tuition or having top-level connections for direct internship opportunities to boost their portfolios.

A common gripe is that it is unfair to those less well off with the same potential to shine if given the chance, but whose opportunity of going to a prestigious top overseas university is denied by someone who can afford it on their own. In addition, wealthy scholars will probably connect less with the ground issues that the man on the street faces when they assume top governmental positions in future.

In an attempt to prove that the not so well off are given the same opportunities as those who are, PSC has disclosed that for the 2008 batch of PSC scholars, 47% live in HDB flats and 53% live in private housing, showing a near-even divide between the rich and the not so rich.

However, one has to consider that nearly 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, thus if anything, the statistic only shows that PSC scholarships still go to affluent candidates in a much larger proportion.

As PSC secretary Ms Goh Soon Poh puts it, “we should not confuse meritocracy, where each succeeds based on his abilities, with affirmative action which seeks to equalise outcomes.” She assured that “there is no quota (in the number of scholarships given), so when two candidates are equally deserving, we never have to discriminate…we give the award to both.”

In Mr. Teo’s speech, he also said that “(PSC) pay(s) special attention to those from a humble background to draw out those who have great potential but may not yet have the polish and finesse of their more socio-economically advantaged peers.”

Let us also not forget that there are bursaries, subsidies and financial assistance schemes to aid needy students, and no student is denied a place in local universities just because he cannot afford it. While it may be argued that this is nothing compared to a top overseas university, our local universities are nevertheless still credible and internationally recognized.

It is simply a matter of accepting this hard fact of life – it is near impossible to level out the playing field based on affluence, because like most things in life, those with the money will be advantaged. Those who are not so well off should accept the fact that they have to work doubly hard to prove themselves instead of waiting for the opportunities to come to them.

That said and placed aside, there are other more concrete issues that PSC has to consider to cover up the cracks in its system:

Inequalities in opportunities by the school

Top schools like Raffles and Hwachong are like mega factories when it comes to producing PSC scholars, and like all big corporations, they enjoy certain economies of scale. These top schools will fight hard to present opportunities to their students for them to have outstanding portfolios and records. They will also find it easier to do so, being better equipped with the expertise and support – for example, top science and research agencies will willingly collaborate with these schools and their bright minds.

Can we say that the same opportunities have been extended to other schools? Would PSC be punishing a candidate who got into a lower-notched school by virtue of his lower examination scores in his early years, but who has since bloomed over the few years and now possesses the aptitude and potential that rival those from top schools?

PSC should take into consideration that whether a candidate, given the opportunities presented by the limits and constraints of his school, make him a more deserving candidate (especially if he goes to create and find his own opportunities), compared to someone who simply has to sit back and make a few selections out of the plethora of choices laid in front of him like a buffet spread by his school.

Arrogance of scholars from top schools

Mr. Teo also mentioned that some scholars are adamant on receiving the more prestigious postings, and will “get upset if posted elsewhere”. Is this any wonder, considering that the bulk of the PSC scholars comes from top schools?

In the early impressionable years in my school, we were repeatedly told that we are the crème de la crème and amoungst the top 3% of the nation. It instilled a sense of arrogance in me – I believed that I was indeed above and better than the others in Singapore. Even in the later years, as I shook free of this mentality, we were still constantly reminded that we will go on to become leaders in our respective fields.

Thus, it is no surprise if several scholars emerge from school with this haughty superiority and believe that they do deserve the best – and now that they have received one of the best government scholarships, they deserve the best postings and appointments too.

I have to be quick to justify though that it is nevertheless important for students in top schools to be given the confidence and self-belief that they can indeed soar high if they make the effort. My school grounds us firmly in traditional values, of which modesty is one of them. It is only a few that slip through the cracks and allow their confidence to escalate into arrogance.

Differences in confidence levels instilled by the school

Having said the above, the attention now swivels to students from lower-notched schools. One wonders if the same confidence is instilled into the top students of these schools. While the numbers are inevitably smaller, there is still a small bunch with aptitude and potential that can rival those from top schools.

Are the top students from these schools intimidated from fighting for a piece of the PSC cake, or have the schools done enough to instill in them the confidence that they too have done well and can go far? Similarly, has PSC done enough to promote its scholarships to them, or have they been overlooked and it only focuses its attention on handing promotional packages to top schools?

Instead of looking up all the time, it is perhaps time for PSC to also look down for students who never thought they could, but who actually can.

Flaws in CIP system

It is important for leaders of the country to possess community spirit and to understand that the community is larger than the individual. However, Mr. Teo mentioned in his speech that some scholars tend “to place their personal interest above organizational interest”. If the PSC scholar selection process was so rigorous, why has it seemingly failed to sieve out the few who value one’s selfish wants above the overall organization’s needs?

The problem is this – the CIP system in schools is one of the few, if not the only, ways to gauge a student’s community spirit, however its model is not the most polished. Anyone can impassively engage in CIP activities just to clock the hours and beef up their CIP records without actually being tangibly involved in the entire process.

PSC also has to know that they are dealing with top, ambitious students – if PSC’s selection process can almost paint a picture of candidates, the candidates can also research into the type of questions that will be possibly asked during the interviews. And if these academic high-achievers have been giving model answers all their lives, it will not be difficult to reproduce a textbook answer to questions about serving the community that serves to impress, but which otherwise is not a reflection of their personal convictions.

If the students can keep up and weasel their way around to beat the system, it is time for PSC to be smarter and faster than that.

Misleading advertising by PSC

Advertisements by the PSC often treat its scholarships more like products to be pushed into the hands of the consumers. While creating awareness of its scholarships is in itself not a bad thing, it will become a problem if these “consumers” are lured because of the glitz, glamour and glitter, rather than because they are interested in the obligations and responsibilities that are attached to the scholarships.

How then should PSC promote its scholarships?

Perhaps Vaughn Tan sums it up best in an entry made in SingaporeAngle¹. He stated that “given that the main objective of public service scholarships is to systematically maximise social utility by concentrating resources on those best suited to serve, only one supposition needs to be made for the purposes of this brief survey.

It is this: the scholars who will best fulfil the PSC’s objective (and society’s) are likely to be those who commit to a PSC scholarship in full knowledge of these requirements and objectives.

By this I mean those students who commit to a scholarship in full knowledge that it is above all else a public service scholarship in every sense of the word, one that requires a passionate commitment to public service qualitatively distinct in scope of concrete and moral responsibilit(ies) from private engagements and remunerative employment.”

He elaborated, and I paraphrase, that glitzy marketing by the PSC of its scholarships often gives one the impression of good job security and benefits. However, what it often does not highlight is that attached as well is a heavy responsibility to the public.

PSC should instead brand its scholarships as a hard choice that will do good, instead of a good choice that is not hard to make – instead of branding purely in terms of benefits to the individual, the larger sense of duty and accountability to the nation should be emphasized. Only then might PSC draw the intended crowd to its scholarships.

In fact, this has been adopted by some foreign armies which see a consistent high turnover rate, because glorious advertisements stirring up heated emotions of patriotism and heroism turn out grossly incongruent with the actual daily tasks that the recruited soldiers have to undertake.

Conclusion

It will be near impossible for a foolproof system to be devised such that every scholar is the spitting image of what the selection panel in PSC has in mind. PSC has already done well with its rigorous screening process, but if it would take the above into consideration, perhaps the few that inevitably slip through its cracks will decrease in number. And of course, taxpayers’ money would not go to waste.

¹The entry can be found at http://singaporeangle.blogspot.com/2005/07/sze-meng-blogs-more-on-scholarships.html

About the Author:

Low Wei Xiang, a self-dubbed writer with journalistic aspirations, has found himself graduated from Hwachong Institution, released from the army, and is currently thrown back onto the streets. He is also a self-confessed owl and sleeping is his secret passion, although it clashes with his other interests. Aged 20, he writes short stories on top of serious stuff, and will be entering NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communications and Information in 2010.

Source: The Temasek Review