Senior school reforms fail test of confidence

Comment on The West, 9 April 2005, p.58

At present, students in the last two years of high school can select from about 400 subjects. Of these, 22 may be used in the selection criteria for university entrance. That is, students must select subjects from the 22 if they intend to go on to university. results are given as A, B, C, D... although these are magically converted to a percentage for university entrance requirements.

..o0o..

Thinking Lateral
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The new system will have 50 courses. Results will be given as a number from 4 to 8, representing a "level of performance". None of the courses count towards university entrance; if you want to get into university -- that's a separate, external exam.

What on earth are these people trying to do?!

First up, the article itself seems contradictory... Take that bit about the external exam for university entrance: Another part of the article indicates that all courses can count towards university entrance, so students will choose the easier courses.

If there really is "an external exam" -- and if it is the test for university entrance -- what will it examine? Or will there be one exam for each of the 50 courses -- in which case yes, students may as well pick the easiest subjects... Metalwork, woodwork, music and Japanese will be ideal preparation for university studies in law, medicine and physics...

What would really happen, of course, is that university faculties would set their own requirements: selecting the acceptable courses, or even adding their own test as an entry prerequisite. Medicine already does this -- they have a special test of skills and attitudes that are not, possibly could not be, taught at schools. It would be easy to extend this to test knowledge in all subject areas that are considered relevant to the university course.

And what about the scoring system: levels from 4 to 8... Presumably, levels 0 to 3 are reached in previous years. Levels 9 and up would require a university education. If I get a level 29 performance in philately, would that entitle me to a PhD?

There was even a claim -- by the minister, I think, in an earlier report -- that levels would represent equivalent knowledge across every course. So a level 8 in physics is exactly the same as a level 8 in woodwork and a level 8 in music. Sure, each of these subjects is worthwhile, challenging, too difficult for me... But how can you possibly claim that they are equivalent? Who could possibly believe that each subject is equally good preparation for a particular course at university?

Not to mention: who could possibly believe that a level 8 in physics is equivalent to a level 8 in woodworking as preparation for a TAFE course in cabinet-making?

The trouble is, we are taking one school system and trying to make it fit all possible requirements: preparation for work and life and university and trades and all else that young people could possibly require. Can we possibly admit that some people would prefer physics and some would prefer mechanics? If we admit that, then we can allow streams of students, each with different subject choices and different methods of teaching and evaluation.

Sure, it seems unfair to make students choose a career direction before they finish school. On the other hand -- it is ridiculous to force every student through exactly the same sausage-machine education system. How long do we plan to delay the need for any choices? Why not accept that if the wrong choice has been made -- there is always the opportunity to change, to retrain, later in life.

Let's stop this force-feeding of "equal opportunity". It's not really equal opportunity -- it's equality of results: every student will be an educational clone. Forget about forced equivalence... let's look to the benefits of separate educational opportunities.

Accept that people -- including high school students -- are all different. Celebrate -- encourage -- and support those differences. Forget education that supports an educational theory of how the world should look. Provide education to suit students as they really are -- and as they would like to be.

..o0o..

Independent Thinking
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