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I have always had mixed feeling about the Singapore’s way. In this place, bureaucracies is everything. All aspects of your life are controlled, and where there is no law forcing you, rules are in place to push you into the direction you _ought_ to be going.

The directions themself usually make sense, and I can see merits in what the nation is doing. But I will hate to have my children growing up in this country.

Let’s look at the ECA(Extra Curricula Activities) point system, which is in place in my university.

There are many different grades of rooms in the student’s halls, from cozy single rooms 2-minute-walk from class, to dodgy double-sharings with questionable toilets. And the rental are only 10–20% different. So what decides who gets which room at the beginning of each year? The _points_ .

Students accumulate ECA points by joining clubs & societies, playing in inter-varsity games, and taking part in whatever activites the university deems worthy of points.

And if something does not worth its value in ECA points, it does not worth anything.

During the first week of each year, you will see clubs rally for members. And their banners tell a lot.

Join us and earn up to 10 points.

light work, amazing points, ask inside.

If they don’t explicitly spell it out, the first question everybody asks is how much point can they earn doing a particular activity. Would it be good value(point) for the work involved, and so on. Some clubs even sell points.

5 points guaranteed, $5 to join, absolutely no work.

Being hall committee or club committe earns you extra points, and everyone of the thousands of students ended up being some sort of committe or sub-committe. If you are mere member, you could end up needing to join 6-7 clubs just to earn enough points for one of the dodgy room.

Most students are forced to do shitty labour things and scrape points, because the rental outside costs much more. Most of those who can afford to live outside do absolutely no ECA at all.

I’m all for student activities. And I’m all for fair and explicit system of allocating resources. But do I like the above system? Do you?

_Can you imagine book club or classical guitar club taking member attendance every time they meet, so only those who turns up rightly got their points?_