There are many problems with selective schools, rorting by coaching - ie training for the entance exam rather than being selected for genuine academic ability - is just one. Asians are used to and prefer rote learning and drill ("don't think, do it our way") and so coaching colleges suit them, hence the disproportionate number of Chinese and Indian pupils. Note the near total absence of Arabs, Islanders, Africans.
White Australian parents have a much more rounded, holistic view of personhood, childhood, development etc so they do not act like Dragon mothers, forcing their kiddies to be at a coaching college until 8 pm memorising test q uyestions instead of doing some sport or play with friends.

The other big problem, possibly at the root of all the problem, is the general low quality of schooling in comprehensive schools. Low ability, low motivation pupils set the tone andeth o s  of such schools so anyone with ability and interest in learning soon finds them a boring waste of time. Discipline is low, disruptive, thick pupils and their parents keep standards low.

Anyone with ability and interest in learning turns away from them and send their children to private or selective schools - and so the low ability, low motivation to learn cohort takes over comprehensive schools more and more.



Not satire, documentary.

freediver wrote on May 23^rd, 2024 at 10:48am:


You really do not understand the difference between genuine academic ability and training to pass certain types of exams?

A lot of these kiddies are not particularly smart but are coached in passing exams of a very well defined type. They become obscessed by exams and marks with genuine knowledge and understanding a distant consideration. They are only interested in "what's in the test" and this goes on for most of their high school years and at uni.

Many of them are unhappy because they are doing what they parents want them to do rather than what their own talents and interests would lead them to. It is social climing for most families rather than genuine education and personal formation.

Well to do families from any background send their kiddies to private schools where they get a much more rounded education. We sent two of our boys to private, non-Catholic schools. The third was always really good at maths and aced the selective exam. He is now doing post-grad studies in mathematics at a G8 uni.