GEPers and elitism

Just like the pseudo 'shepherd's pie' I had for dinner yesterday, an article in Today has been both thought-provoking and difficult to digest properly.

This article is: What's another word for elitist?, which I have posted here. It's about GEP-ers being elitist. I would agree with some of what has been laid out in the article. However, there are overgeneralisations and perhaps an unhelpful overdosage of stereotyping.

I find the article difficult to accept. It aims to criticise, but is not very robustly critical.

Aiya. Maybe my beef with it is that it's not very balanced.

Some gripes of mine:

• They hang out only with each other. A clear overgeneralisation.
  
• They become so comfortable with other GEPers (as they call themselves), that even outside the classroom they prefer each other’s company. Is this a crime? If so, certainly not a crime of the students. As Ms. Teo said, don't people normally hang out with people they ... hang out with and know?
  
• Michael Wee, another 15-year-old GEP student, said that the ostracism “does not affect GEP students in any way. What with existing close ties with other fellow GEP students, no one needs to bother about ostracism from those outside the programme”. *slaps face* Ok. Some room for immaturity can? Immaturity exists in everyone.
  
• (Mr. Johannis) freely admits that many GEPers can be unskilled in social niceties and often can’t make small talk. I admit that I may have no idea what social niceties mean or should mean. And what kind of small talk one should make. But surely, this is a problem not just for GEP-ers but also anyone from any socio-economic class or educational background. It's grossly unfair to single out GEPers.
  
• It is unfair to call the GEP elitist. It is just another level of a highly-structured hierarchical education system. What Dr. Peet probably means is that... it isn't fair to just call the GEP elitist. Instead, it's the whole educational system.
  
• There should be room for more porous movement between the GEP and the other streams,” What does this teacher mean by 'porous movement'? In a concrete sense.
  

So what's another word for elitist? The article never answer its question oso.

It also never say what it means by elitist.

Or discuss whether elitism is necessarily bad.

But it's a tabloid hor.

If people want to read my B-grade tuppence worth essay on educational elitism, here it is.