Answer To: Assessment Report (1300 Words)In “The Meritocracy Myth”, McNamee and Miller identify several...
Taruna answered on Oct 26 2021
4
Introduction
Merits are the norms through which, the skills and potentials of people are judged and awarded. In fact, the structured approach of the society is to accept all merits and professional attributes of professionals and provide support them to grow as much as possible (McName, 2004; Blaker, 2003, Appiah, 2014). However, the term meritocracy takes this concept to a different canvas of thinking i.e. coined by Michael Young in his book; meritocracy has been put to debate at international level. To define it, the concept of meritocracy can be divided into three structural components and they are as following: at first, it is the provision that allows careers open to talents, secondly, educational opportunity matched to natural ability and finally, achievement as the basis for social inequality in industrial society (McName, 2004; Blaker, 2003, Appiah, 2014) In the context of Australia, The idea of meritocracy is embodied in the 'fair go' kind of ultimate of Australian ideals, the feeling that everyone should have an equal chance to enrich their life and pursue rewards based on their talent and hard work. Australians are passionate about equal rights as a way to ensure a more just and fair society, and at the same time, willing to achieve equality targets.
Meritocracy and its Interpretations
At first, it is significant to note here that the source of meritocracy is the American Dream, Where it is a dominant philosophy profoundly rooted in American culture's traditions and values (Drummond et al, 2011; Allen, 2011) America is the land of unlimited opportunity, according to the American Dream philosophy, where people will go as far as their own merit takes them. Apparently, getting ahead is based on individual merit, which is typically seen as a mix of variables like natural skill, working hard, having the right mindset, and having high moral character and honesty. Not only do Americans seem to think this is how the system should operate, but most Americans still believe this is how the system works (Corbett, 2013).
However, the Australian approach to meritocracy is different. For example, Australian education system at higher level is said to be meritocratic, it implies that anyone having skills and ability to read at university should appear there. The scheme supports the idea that all eligible Australians, whether that university is situated in rural or urban areas, should have access to their choice of university (McName, 2004; Blaker, 2003, Appiah, 2014). However, existing trends are not in favor of this ideology due to the decline in the number of applicants from rural area coming to the university. The Department of Education and Training (2017) stated that citizens in rural areas are not equally represented by the population in higher education, there was 28.6% rural population overall but the number of representations was 23.5% in the university.
Australian universities and the enrollment ratios are...