Education should be free.

Education should be free, everywhere, everywhen. There should be no fees at any stage of the educational process. To do otherwise, is to compromise the whole purpose, nature and intent of education itself.

Why do I say this? Well, to ask a fee for education - any fee at all - is to ensure that some potential students will be excluded not on the basis of ability but on the inability to pay. The higher the fee, the higher the barrier to those of limited means and the more who will be excluded.

Singapore, like America charges for its education. Thus, like America it is an unequal system where opportunities differ depending on the wealth of one's family. This should not be so.

Today, Ainan returned to Singapore Polytechnic to continue with Chemistry. Unprecedentedly, however, he laboured alone in the labs, the seat beside him, where his lab partner had sat, on all other occasions, remained empty.

Half-way through the class, I asked the lecturer if she knew where Ainan's lab partner was: was she sick...or had she dropped out of the course?

The answer was as feared. Ainan's experimental partner had returned home to Malaysia. The lecturer then voiced my own thought: "I don't know why...she had no problems with the lab work."

I agreed with her. Ainan's partner had been as competent as she had been warm, to Ainan. I very much doubted whether a lack of ability to cope was the reason.

"I think it is probably financial. Singapore is very expensive for a Malaysian - and the economy is not good now."

The lecturer agreed. "Such a pity...she was such a nice girl, too."

"Yes." She had been a very good partner for Ainan.

As I returned to the bench to sit beside Ainan, I reflected on what this meant. Ainan's lab partner had come all the way from Malaysia, to secure a "better education" for herself. She had parted from home and family to do so. Now, however, in all likelihood, she had been forced to give up her dream to return home to Malaysia, her qualification incomplete, her education cut short. The probable reason: money.

I don't think that a lack of money should be allowed to impede anyone's education. Education should be regarded as a basic right - and should be as free as the air we breathe (presently free anyway...). To place a charge upon it, is to ensure that many cannot benefit from it. This means that families whose circumstances are straitened may pass on their limited circumstances to their offspring, whose limited educations will perpetuate the same straitened circumstances. A greater injustice is harder to imagine. Each generation should be allowed to be set free from the limitations of the one before - and the only means to allow that is to ensure that all education is free to all.

Some will object that the girl in question is Malaysian and should therefore pay for a Singaporean education. However, were education free to outsiders Singapore would find little trouble in drawing the best from around the world to its doors - some of whom would go on to settle here. So, there is an advantage even in such a policy.

Whether or not education should be free to non-nationals is not a central issue. The point is that education, in Singapore and America, is not even free to nationals. It should be.

When I grew up, in the UK, Universities were free to all. Indeed, the State paid a fee to each student to cover their living costs at University. This meant that there was social justice: even the poorest could afford to get a University education. It meant that there was great social mobility, with those of poorest background able to rise to the top of the professional tree, if they made the necessary effort - for the doors were not barred by financial means. It strikes me as a better system than those nations that seek a fee everytime knowledge is imparted. Such countries are paying a very high price in the lost potential of their youth.

I wonder, now, whether Ainan's lab partner will ever become the Chemist she had dreamed of being. Will her family be able to afford her education? Will she have to settle for a lesser role in life, wishing away her days on might-have-beens? It is sad - for she would have been a warm and welcome presence in any lab - for not only was she able, but amiable too.

I wish her well on finding a way forward - and I wish well, too, all who are in her situation: stalled in their educations for want of the money to pay for them.

There is a better way: education should be free for all, everywhere, everywhen.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind)