Scholarships and the cut of relative merit

In a article, an issue about the advantages a student from a high income family has in receiving scholarships was raised. This is a result of them being able to have more effective mentoring at home, better schools and tutors, as well as an edge in co-curricular activities. This was proven by the following statistics: 47% of scholarship receipients lived in HDB flats, whereas 53% lived in private housing, which does not seem significant except for the fact that 85% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats. Also, an issue about whether meritocracy was fair or not was raised as well.

I feel that this is true in the sense that a student from a higher income family could probably have better tuition and CCa's than someone from a lower income family. However, a poorer student cannot be given an advantage in receiving scholarships, or given free or cheaper mentoring than that of a student from a higher income family because then it will be unfair to the richer people as they have to spend more money in order for their child to have the same level of education as that of a poor family.

Meritocracy is the rewarding of results regardless of background. True enough, people may say that someone's background may affect their results and therefore poorer people have a disadvantage. However, there is a huge flaw in this statement. Why do parents work harder than needed and scrimp and save? To provide their child with the best. How do parents provide their child with the best? By first having the results to get a good job and by working hard. A parent puts in effort not just for himself, but for the sake of his child's future. If poorer students are given an advantage to bring them to the same learning platform as that of a richer student, that would mean that the parent's efforts are unrewarded and thus, meritocracy would not be achieved.

True enough, this may seem unfair to the student because he is rewarded not just based on his individual efforts, but the cumulative effort of his predeccessors, but that is the reason why previous genertions work hard in the first place, not just for personal riches or glory, but to provide their children and decendants with the means to do the same. Because of this some may say that meritocracy is not achieved either, and I agree. However, if enough effort is put in on the student's part, he can still get a scholarship regardless of background, but it will be more unfair to disregard the effort of previous generations just to make it fair on an individual level.

Ultimately, I feel that meritocracy can never be truly achieved, unless the background of all people are the same, and no external effort like parent's effort come into play, but currently, I feel that the meritocracy we practice now is the closest we can get to real meritocracy.