Meritocracy: The myth of reality

You might be asking yourself, but what is meritocracy? Well Meritocracy is a system which compromises of a government or other organisation where selection of people is made upon talent and ability (merit), instead of wealth (plutocracy), relatives’ link, friends (nepotism), class privilege (oligarchy), friends (cronyism), seniority (gerontocracy) or other historical precedent either from politics or social position. In a system of meritocracy, people are rewarded by society in terms of money, social position or prestige only if they demonstrate their ability and skill from previous action or competition.

So if in this competitive world you might argue that yes only the best is chosen. Why? Because he have all the required qualities or simply because he is the best. What if I say that this does not always happen?
Did this happen to anyone?

You postulate yourself to the student council or prefect body. You were not selected but your friend who was less qualified than you were selected. Why? He had a friend (some contacts) on board. This is cronyism.

An incident happens a few years back. There were two scholarships for medicine higher studies. The people selected were those close from ministers; meaning family members. The irony was that one of them did not even have a good sc and hsc compared to other applicants. The same thigh happened for the post of deputy rectors on secondary school. That’s pure nepotism.

Mauritius is unfortunately not a good example. You can tell a lot from its international ranking; 41st on the 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index. When you imagine that there are approximately 193 (debatable search on Google you will see why) and look at our rank. Quite shameful! I personally think that politics accentuate the problem in Mauritius; bribery for election and lobbying mainly which of course tend to expand in the employment sector. How about those organisations that have the same board of directors for years and years? Is it really because they are competent? And when new postulants comes they faced so must pressure that they must remove their candidature. Films sometimes are quite realistic in showing corruption: 'Gomorrah' 2009, 'Frost Nixon' 2008 etc...

The field which concerns or will concern us soon is the World of work. That could be a real nightmare also. You need to have contacts, contacts and contacts but luckily you have to be qualified. On a large scale, private sector work encourages meritocracy. Nevertheless it has not been spared by the disease of corruption.

Why should your colleague who has close contact (.....) with the boss be promoted instead of you who tried to PLEASE your boss through your hard work? Why should we only have a person a certain race or ethnic for a particular position? Why should we be discarded because of our physical appearance? Why should we be put aside because of your origins? Why should you be rejected because of your colour? Why should you be marginalised because of your family background? Why should you be segregated because of your belief?

Why is it that not the best is rewarded?

Maybe in a Utopian world.