Forum: Student leadership elections aren’t preparing pupils for real civic life

Schools often have some form of student leadership, usually in the form of a student council. But the way elections are conducted to determine the leaders belies how Singaporean electoral systems actually operate. This is unproductive in nurturing students to become politically and civically engaged citizens.

A common criticism is how these elections are largely popularity contests. While an unfortunate consequence of a small electorate electing a comparatively large number of councillors, this gives no broader insight into how parliamentarians actually get elected. I suggest schools try to encourage replicating real-world outreach and community engagement, rather than mere empty popular campaigning.

Furthermore, how such elections are actually administered leads to fundamental misconceptions regarding how electoral systems work.

I can only speak for some Singapore schools, but the large variety of alternative voting systems that feature in these school elections reflects either excessive simplification or idealism. Such features include the ability to cast more than one vote, the ability to rank votes, and the ability to change a vote after it has been cast.

There is obvious precedent and possible value in actually implementing such systems, but this is not effective in giving Singaporean students insight into the system we currently have.

While I can acknowledge the relatively small impact of school elections for student councils, we cannot deny that they do not reflect Singapore’s democratic system, and may be misteaching how it functions. 

Adwin Lau Yu Tan, 17