> Our schooling and educational systems are very merit based.

I'm not sure where' you're based, but that's certainly not the case where I live. I once worked for a company that made grading software. I quit after 3 months because they wanted to implement features like, "Teacher wants to be able to change grade to a specific letter, even if student's scores add up to a different letter grade." (In other words, even though this student received an "A" based on test scores, I want them to have a "C" instead. Or vice-versa.)