Full disclosure – both writers of this blog are third/fourth-generation ACS alumni, with complete ACS educations.
Malcolm Gladwell would call it a ‘tipping point’ - the Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)’s recent decision to go co-ed. The school’s motto was that every student should be ‘a scholar, an officer, and a gentleman’. Now it will be something like ‘a scholar, a leader, and a global citizen’. Not quite the same ring to it.
There are many reasons why such a move is ill-conceived, some to do with pedagogy, and some to do with strategy. I believe this model, while to be lauded for its inclusivity, is one that is inefficient in terms of specialization and division of labor. The ACS family of schools (which is inclusive of the other Methodist schools) offer a broad range of differentiated products and specialize in different levels of education. Leveraging on economies of scale, coordinating and cooperating in the market can create value and strengthen institutional position. Instead, the school has chosen multiple redundancy.
This decision is only symptomatic of a larger trend in ACS, which I will write more of soon.
