Knox, Williamson and Bayne (2020) note how governments and other institutions (e.g. schools) can use programmes to “persuade people to make better choices” for themselves. I have had first-hand experience in watching how a school and teachers have exploited behavioral science in the name of “the good of the child”.

When I was teaching English in a secondary school, I remember a day where a Head of Department (HOD) informed me that my form class of secondary 1 students were going to take a career guidance quiz. The test was administered by an external vendor employed by the school. My class was a Normal (Academic) class that was deemed by our education system as less academically inclined. After the test, I became quite disillusioned for a while and very angry.

One of my students shared that the results suggested that she should pursue a “creative” career, such as musician, artist or designer because she was “weaker” at Mathematics. She added that she agreed with the test results and said that she was considering to be a designer. I was incensed.

In my opinion, the results of the test did little for her except tell her not to put in more effort for Mathematics. Even if it was her “weakest” subject, the last thing I wanted for her as a teacher was to make a life decision at 13 based on the results of one test. Worst of all, such tests (like the famous and overused Myers Briggs test) have dubious validity and reliability. But, I was powerless because she had “data” from the test and all I had was my “opinion” and “experience”. She being 13 did not help either.

Career guidance has become more pervasive in Singapore schools. The Ministry of Education has rolled out its Education and Career Guidance programme (ECG) and installed a career guidance counsellor in every secondary school. It seems like another effort to indoctrinate with goals such as “instill in students an appreciation for the value of all occupations and how they contribute to the society” and “appreciate, take pride and add value to any job” (MOE, n.d.).

In another case, I had a male student who was advised by the HOD of the Humanities department to not sit for his GCE ‘O’ level History paper. The latter told the student that he was very weak in the subject and was highly unlikely to pass. Sitting for it meant that he would have to live with an F grade on his transcript for the rest of his life. What he did not share with the student was that students’ grades were taken into consideration for appraisals for teacher, HODs and schools. In Singapore, a school’s pass rates in all subjects are compared against the corresponding national averages. If the student were to fail the exam, he would push the school average down, and in turn affect the HODs appraisal.

I have shared two qualitative examples of students being victims of datafication in education. Perhaps, another telling sign of how the state goes about “nudging” (Knox, Williamson & Bayne, p. 38) students into the “right” career is the planned intake for higher education institutes. In Singapore, primary school is compulsory under the Compulsory Education Act (Singapore Statutes Online, 2020) and parents who are guilty of not enrolling their child(ren) are “liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both”. Essentially, every student undergoes primary school education. It is in the benefit of the state to have a literate and numerate population. However, a look at Singapore Polytechnic’s planned intake for AY2020/2021 shows that there are only 43 places for the diploma in Creative Writing for Television & New Media but 200 places for the diploma in Mechanical Engineering. My point here is that planned intake figures are not random and national interests were likely to have been taken into consideration.

References

Knox, J., Williamson, B., & Bayne, S. (2019). Machine behaviourism: Future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 31-45.

Ministry of Education (MOE). (2020). Education and career guidance: Overview. MOE. https://beta.moe.gov.sg/programmes/education-and-career-guidance/overview/

Singapore Polytechnic. (2020). Full-time diploma courses course intake and JAE ELR2B2 range. Singapore Polyechnic. https://www.sp.edu.sg/sp/admissions/admissions-exercises/admission-criteria/course-intake-and-jae-elr2b2

Singapore Statutes Online (2020). Compulsory Education Act. Singapore Statutes Online. https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/CEA2000

Week 10: Self-fulfilling Prophecies / Illyas Lim Effandi / An introduction to digital environments for learning (2020/2021)[SEM1] by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0