Chairman of the SMU Board of Trustees Ho Kwon Ping suggested a radical set of educational reforms, in response to Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s comments that Singapore should become a continuous meritocracy, and about how barriers to continuous meritocracy begin forming when someone is still in school. To counter the lack of continuous meritocracy, Singapore could adopt a credit-based system for all secondary schools, coupled with a much more diverse set of subjects on offer, modelled on the American system. This would allow students to pick disciplines they are strong in and earn credits for them. "If I happen to be more bookish and you're more playful and creative, under the current narrow system, bingo, I do better than you, I'm on an upward trajectory and you're going downwards," he said.