No place for elitism here

An email sent out by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences got the attention of mainstream media last month. A screenshot of the email had gone viral and raised the ire of undergraduates and netizens alike.

In the email, the school asked for inspirational stories from “graduating VIP students from an important or well-known family, sons or daughters of politicians, professors, celebrities etc”, as well as outstanding undergraduates with multiple job offers, among others.

An NTU spokesperson defended the email and accepted that “the highlighted line could have been better phrased”, but netizens expressed anger over the use of narrow-minded indicators.

The original Facebook post has been liked over 500 times and shared over 750 times.

Sourcing out the most interesting stories is a perfectly normal thing to do. But blatantly coming up with a selective list of desired candidates is always likely to raise eyebrows — or as it showed, fingers on the keyboard.

Some questioned the phrasing of the sentences, and some even mentioned how it appeared like an internal memo. If anything, the brouhaha it caused highlights the low-key elitism in the system.

Elitism is not new to us. It is part of the Singaporean psyche, and such incidents do nothing to quell these sentiments.

While some brushed off the incident as a marketing fiasco, the message sent across by the email might instill potentially harmful doubts in the heads of the average student whose background might not have met the standard of a “good, inspirational story”.

That it has led to such outrage is, however, an encouraging sign.

It is worth noting that many NTU students voiced their opinions and considered both sides of the story, rather than resorting to blatant criticism.

In an environment that emphasises meritocracy, every individual student should be given an equal chance to excel.

One does not need to be socially privileged or famous to have a story to tell.

Indeed, as the NTU statement stated: “Convocation is a celebration of our students’ achievements and knowledge, and as always, we will be as inclusive as possible and portray this by featuring stories of students from all walks of life.”

Being an institution that opens its doors to students from all walks of life is what makes the University unique and vibrant in the first place. There should be no place for elitism here.