Above Article describes an interview he had with Straits Times.
Interview with Chong Kee Hong
He didn't want someone else to get a prize because of a half mark difference although he had already grab one prize for himself.
I don't want to disparage what he says and the value system he represents. You should read the Interview yourself and make your own assessment of this new potential PAP candidate, the CEO of a property company.
On my part I would like to tell a story related to me by my secondary school senior who made it all the way to NTU and graduated with a degree. He was from a poor family like myself but the story illustrate another set of values to think of the kind of Singapore we want.
My senior from my neighborhood secondary school was one of the few who made it to university. However, he was a late bloomer and started to do quite well in NTU. He went through 1st to 3rd yr without a glitch. However, things went wrong in the fourth yr. His mother had cancer and his family was in financial difficulties.
In NTU, for the 4th year students have to do a project and their degree hinges on the project grade. My senior was partnered with a brilliant but eccentric student who was a programming whiz for the project. In his 4th year, due to family problems he could barely cope with the course work let alone the project. He had difficulty delivering his sections of the project and his partner did everything and got the whole thing working...and most of the project report.
When it came to show the project to the supervisor who was a professor, the partner told my senior to rehearse one day before the demo to teach him what to say.
On the day of the demo, the partner made sure my senior demonstrate half the system and he demostrate the other half. After that the professor asked "who did what in the project". The partner explained that they all had equal share of effort in project.
My senior thanked the partner and asked why he helped him so much - he could have gotten a better grade for himself and got a first class honors. The partner said that second upper is good enough to get almost any job and and besides my senior needed help at that time and he was more than happy he could help.
A few years later, my senior was working in an engineering firm and promoted to manager position. They had a class gathering during which he met his old project partner. His old project partner had spent a few years on a promising startup that had failed and was out of the job. Knowing how good he was, my senior recommended him to join his company ...and today both worth in the same company but different dept.
A society gets the best results when people go out of the way to help others not grab every opportunity to advance themselves over half a mark difference in the name of meritocracy. Today Singapore has the most unequal society among developed countries. Yet the PAP continues to recruit the same kind of people with the same mindset for its next generation leaders. (
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