Another stark difference that is imperative for us to recognise between elite and neighbourhood schools is the wealth of opportunities that students are able to capitalise on. Even though the then-Minister of Education, Heng Swee Keat, vehemently claimed that programmes in all schools are adequate to nurture and actualise a student’s potential, it unfortunately is an insular statement because of the vast chasm of the quantity and quality of programmes between elite and neighbourhood schools. However, it is paramount to acknowledge that the word opportunities is indeed a nebulous word because of the broad definition that it encompasses. Hence, for the sake of this essay, the word opportunities will entail programmes and social networks that schools provide.

Evidently, elite schools pride themselves as institutions dedicated to developing and nurturing a student’s potential that hone a student’s holistic development by catering a plethora of programmes. This is because the vast demographic of students hailing from elite schools are inquisitive individuals belonging to the corps d’elite. Hence, to satiate the unquenchable thirst within these students, elite schools will fervently cater to these students to stretch them beyond the syllabus. Take for instance Anglo Chinese School Independent (ACSI), which hosts a buffet of prestigious academic programmes for students to explore such as their Accelerated Class for Science, which handpicks students who have a penchant for Science related subjects and trains them to represent the school in the Science Olympiads. Even if students are not inclined towards the Sciences, they still have a chance to enter the coveted Humanities Scholars’ Programme, which stretches students beyond the regular academic curriculum and bestows upon them the opportunity to attend both local and international conferences and seminars hosted by ministers and renowned leaders in their fields. Such opportunities will further fuel the desire within these inquisitive students to continuously learn and acquire knowledge in various schools of thought, which will greatly broaden their horizons.

In stark contrast, neighbourhood schools seem to pale vis a vis their elite school counterparts in terms of the programmes offered. This is because neighbourhood schools often cater to students who are not academically inclined, which means that these schools have to be fixated on helping these students to attain an understanding and mastery in the topics in the prescribed syllabus instead of stretching them beyond the curriculum’s requirements. Thus, it is commonplace to see neighbourhood schools having a dearth of academic programmes offered. Even if such an assumption is untrue, and neighbourhood schools do offer academic programmes to nurture the higher ability students, these academic programmes often are piecemeal and inadequate because most students fail to see the true value in these programmes because they deem it as ‘unhelpful’ and ‘unnecessary in understanding the stipulated curriculum’, which means that the rate of uptake of such programmes will be abysmal. Thus, in neighbourhood schools, it is no surprise that these programmes are swiftly removed from the curriculum or even buried as unrealised plans.

This phenomenon is all owing to a sole reason: the presence of funding, which these prestigious schools possess, ranging from charitable donor funds from esteemed companies to hoards of generous alumni donations. This is due to the immense sense of pride and gratitude that many alumni and corporate donors feel towards the school, strongly owing their success to the school’s support system in moulding them into ‘successful individuals’. Thus, they feel a compelling need to give back to their school, helping the school to nurture the next generation of brilliant minds. Hence, it would not be a surprise to see recurring alumni and corporate donations, with such donations even immortalising their names on a donation board and plastering the board near the school entrance because of the gratitude that the school has towards them generously giving back to the school. This strongly bolsters the funding that many elite schools receive aside from the regular funding from MOE, ushering new programmes to be launched by the school and to revamp existing programmes, both of which ensure that students are continuously benefitting from such programmes, thus retaining the prestige and status of elite schools delivering nothing but excellence to their students.

By comparison, funding in neighbourhood schools is abysmal because they solely rely on funding from the government, which unfortunately provides the bare minimum to sustain and operate schools. Even though some neighbourhood schools conduct donation drives, appealing to generous corporations to donate, it inevitably fails to amass a significant number of people who are willing to part with their money to the school because of the lack of allure and prestige that the school confers. Sure, some neighbourhood schools implore their alumni to donate back to the school but this is unfortunately a veil of parochialism because these alumni do not possess the financial capital to do so. Even though some might possess the means to donate, these donations are unfortunately inadequate for the school to sustain their programmes. Hence, it is unsurprising that these beleaguered neighbourhood schools are confronted with the impossible and gargantuan task of continuing their academic programmes without funding, severely punishing students with the lack of programmes.

This phenomenon serves to persistently disadvantage students from neighbourhood schools because those who are academically competent would constantly feel deprived of programmes and resources that allow them to explore beyond the curriculum, even feeling stifled by the rigidity of the normal curriculum that teachers in class abide by. Hence, when these students ascend to higher education, they would feel the brunt of the ramifications of their teachers’ actions when they are applying for early admissions into institutions of higher learning or even applying for scholarships, pushing them further away from achieving success.

Additionally, it is paramount to realise that opportunities do not extend to just academic opportunities. In fact, social networks are a crucial tenet of an elite school, granting elite school students a head start in the relentless rat race. In elite schools, it is ubiquitous to rub shoulders with the wealthy and powerful in school because the majority of students hail from such family environments, having parents who wield positions of power at their workplaces. Hence, it would be easier for students to clinch internships or even jobs in the future because they ‘happen to know someone’ at Drew and Napier, just by simply tapping onto their extensive networks.

Nevertheless, these networks are not restricted to just social networks. In reality, it would be pervasive to see a vast array of networking sessions throughout the year, with the school inviting some of their decorated alumni back to give seminars to students or even conduct personalised mentorship programmes. For instance, these highly valorised alumni would educate their juniors on the potential career paths to explore and even give them ‘insider information’ on how to break into these industries. Moreover, alumni would impart knowledge such as teaching juniors how to navigate interview questions, training their juniors to skillfully manoeuvre the interview with ease. These skills are invaluable insights that would inordinately grant elite school students a huge competitive advantage over the rest of their competition.

By comparison, the majority of neighbourhood school students originate from humble beginnings. Since neighbourhood school students usually originate from the lower class in society, it would not be surprising that some of their parents command jobs that are scorned as ‘lower class’. For instance, it would not faze many neighbourhood school students when their friends tell them that their parents are working as hawkers or even cleaners because the environment of a neighbourhood school is as such. Hence, students are exposed to mixing with others from the ‘lower class’ and are very unlikely to forge connections with students from the upper strata of society. Thus, these students would be struggling to find illustrious jobs in the future simply because they ‘don’t know anyone’ holding these jobs in their networks.

Moreover, since these students hail from neighbourhood schools, there is a low tendency that these schools would offer networking events to allow students to form meaningful connections. This is because neighbourhood schools would deem these networking events as superfluous or even unnecessary because of the lack of decorated alumni. Even if some alumni do successfully challenge the prevailing societal perception of neighbourhood schools and shatter the glass ceiling of limitations imposed by society, they unfortunately do not want to be reminded of their roots to their neighbourhood schools simply because of how society has labelled them as ‘tainted’ or ‘worthless’ during their formative years. Thus, they would have no hesitation in obscuring the fact that they once were a student of such schools, and desire to be dissociated from the neighbourhood schools that they originated from. Hence, without a figure to look up to, neighbourhood school students are unable to capitalise on these networks and connections to benefit themselves as they ascend to higher education, which only serves to contribute to the systemic inequality that current neighbourhood school students face.