Beneath the Shiny Surface

I was applying for a certain Master’s degree scholarship online and all was proceeding fairly well, until I got to this question in the form that really got my mind cogitating. I can’t really recall the exact way in which it was phrased but it was something of this sort: “Have you done any voluntary r charity work? Name the organisations you’ve volunteered for and what your role/position was.” In parentheses was that, voluntary or charity work you have done reflects that you care about the community and that you’re not too academically oriented.

   I reckon at face-value there seems to be nothing wrong or the matter with this question and its assertion that acts of charity show concern for humanity on the part of the applicant. But as you probe deeper, you open sort of a Pandora’s Box. The first question I asked myself was that why my voluntary work should be judged within the purview of a formal organisation and position? This led to other follow-up questions: What about that student with excellent grades in his undergraduate degree with academic awards to go with it, who dedicated his or her time to studying and with the little spare time that they had, squeezed in a part-time job to feed their poverty-stricken family? Or, for that matter, that student who, during his studies, worked part time, to pay for his or her younger siblings’ school fees? Do these foregoing selfless acts count within confines of the question quoted in the opening paragraph? Probably not. In any case, they’d think you are making it up. Perchance, to one not exposed to poverty, these questions I’ve raised are quite far-fetched, yet hypothetical as they may be; I personally knew people in almost similar circumstances during my university days.

   On another note, I asked myself how far does this criterion serve to sidetrack the scholarship board from its main aim of funding excelling students from disadvantaged communities/countries. In all candour, it is visible that to serve the disadvantaged has never been a priority. What this criterion translates to is that the scholarship is open to the so-called “burgeoning middle-class”, where charity and voluntary work is something to be quantified and recorded meticulously under the aegis of philanthro-capitalism.

My gripe is that this only serves to institutionalise bourgeois values, while turning a blind eye to the real poor folks. It would’ve been better if some of these scholarships never claim to be for the disadvantaged because they are not. They are for a middle-class who haven’t just enough quid to further post-graduate education. There you are ladies and gentlemen; it is something of a travesty. Once again, poor man, you are own your own.