Class

Dined with some university classmates. Many of us have become parents and naturally we had an active discussion on the application of kindergarten and primary school.

YC, a neurosurgeon, talking about his experience in applying a famous local school, sighed, "They consider nothing but the social status of the parents. You know what, one of our consultants had his son straight-in. The associate consultant of the other department had his daughter on waiting list. And I, a humble senior medical officer, my daughter was not even on the waiting !"

(For those unfamiliar with our system, senior medical officer is the same grade as associate consultant; you get the former title if you were promoted before early 2000s. Obviously the latter sounds better - that's what we call title inflation.)

Although I should be secretly rather happy with this system, by no means I'm at ease in such a society. If the chance of receiving (good) education depends on your family background rather than ability, what hope could we hold for our society in the future ?

PS. The major presumption of the above discussion, of course, is that those discriminating schools do provide good education. I would leave it to your judgement.