For those of you who subscribed to the Lianhe Zaobao (联合早报) papers, you would have noticed the picture of a sobbing lady on the front page. It was about Phase 2C of the Primary One registration exercise.
The exercise had ended yesterday. There were tears of joy and sadness as parents went through the balloting process to get their child to the desired schools of their choice. However, according to the article, the disappointed parent has decided to pick up an application form to be a parent volunteer in the school. As a parent volunteer, her child will qualify to be enrolled in that school, saving them the hassle of going through the arduous balloting process. Doesn't this act constitute a form of bribery?
According to the Oxford dictionary, bribery is defined as the act of offering things to influence a person to act in favour of the giver. If that is the case, the act of the parent volunteer (the giver) volunteering her service (the thing offered) to the school so that her child can get enrolled (the favour to the giver) is bribery!Parents are selling their bodies (literally) to the schools, hoping that in return, the school automatically admits their children. So what if there is a parent who is a busy breadwinner and does not have the time to "volunteer"? Doesn't this put them on an unequal-level playing field to the other "free" parents?
Poor parents. Education isn't about education anymore. Its about (commercial) business. Since when did our education system evolve into one which advocates "legal bribery"?
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