Meritocratic education and citizenship | Sunday Observer

Meritocratic education and citizenship

13 December, 2020

Meritocracy is a system, an organisation or a society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power and influence on the basis of their demonstrated talent, effort and achievement rather than wealth or social class. Since our society is well seasoned for selecting / electing people for advancement on the basis of knowledge and achievement from their school days onwards, it will not be difficult to see both sides of the meritocratic coin.

The word was introduced by the British sociologist/social activist Michael Young, in his 1958 futuristic satirical novel “The Rise of the Meritocracy: 1870 – 2033” using the Latin prefix ‘mereo’ meaning ‘deserve, earn, gain..’ and Greek suffix ‘cracy’ meaning a particular form of government, rule or influence. The narrator, a sociologist himself, in the book looks back at the social, educational and political changes in England in the past 160+ years from the year 2034.

Not only England but the whole world currently is experiencing the latter half of that fictitious future imagined by the author in 1958.

‘Equal opportunity’

Meritocracy in today’s language is ‘equal opportunity’, used by politicians the world over as a bulletproof vest for their manifestos designed to whet the appetite of the citizens who are craving the same.

One Prime Minister of Britain used the slogan “we will be the world’s greatest meritocracy – the country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and hard work will allow”. The previous president of the US, Barack Obama said, “we are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else” while the current president of the US is of the view that “we must create a level playing field for American companies and workers”.

Globally franchised TV talent shows, intentionally or not, have become the easiest way to prove that meritocracy is alive and well since everyone could see that talent plus effort brings success. The new face of meritocracy extends greater equality of opportunity for more people than ever before. People are encouraged to believe that if they tried hard enough they could make it irrespective of their gender, caste, race or religion.

Entrepreneurial behaviour

In the attempt to realise inner talent and marketing appropriately people atomise themselves as individuals and compete with each other.

This process is identified as part of the entrepreneurial behaviour that is promoted heavily in the current market economy. This essentially weakens the community since the importance of common good is overlooked.

When the average person gets intoxicated by such market trends he/she effectively loses the ability to see the places where meritocracy is used as the vehicle by which plutocracy – government by wealthy elite – reproduces and perpetuates.

Schools and universities are considered as meritocratic institutions throughout the world where every student is treated equitably and all are supposed to have the opportunity to succeed if they have the ability and are ready to make the effort. Whether it is true in real life or not is a question which each and every citizen should think about.

If every student is not treated equitably and/or does not have equal opportunities to succeed, the fundamental assumptions needed for meritocratic norms are not being satisfied and therefore, the idea of living in a meritocratic society would only be an illusion. Not only students but also teachers, professors and even institutes are ranked according to their merit, and ranking automatically creates the competition leading each unit into individualism in its respective category. The dominance of standardised testing and teaching methods of test taking show how meritocracy controls education. Nationwide or worldwide tests are being used as policing mechanisms to keep children attentive.

The formal education systems are the breeding grounds for individuals who believe that meritocracy is the best way for the society to allocate different roles to individuals to ensure stability and progress. But there will inevitably be inequalities since some individuals have more abilities than others, some work harder and therefore achieve greater success, wealth and power. It is important to notice that some achieving greater heights mean that the others are at lower levels.

That provides a context within which social exclusion and denial of full social and civic engagement can prosper.

The book, “The Rise of the Meritocracy” describes a society consumed by the testing of intelligence and intensive selections through educational qualifications designed to produce maximum social efficiency. The system will be based on merit selections where intelligence and effort will make up the merit (IQ + effort = merit). People will be carrying government issued identity cards which will indicate the name, the date of birth and the IQ of the person.

Employers will categorise their top positions according to the IQ levels of the employees and recruitment will be done accordingly. The society will be dominated by meritocratic elitists, an exclusive and discriminatory class, that will protect the power and resources necessary to perpetuate its dominance. Meritocracy may tend to take the power out of people and place it on the ruling individual leaving an opening for another form of abuse of power.

It is also heavily influenced by the education system where equal access to quality education for all the citizens is needed to guarantee that the opportunities are not limited to the rich and the powerful.

At the end, meritocracy will have created exactly the same hierarchical structure where wealth and power are accumulated among the top one percent of the population where the creation of that one percent was shown through the illusion of ‘equal opportunity’.

The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic for over twenty years in the USA and thirteen years in Sri Lanka and can be contacted at [email protected] 

Comments