Selective schools must promote equity and inclusion
July 29, 2018 — 12.00am
For some the news that arrived in the post earlier this month would have been good, perhaps even life changing. Many more would have disappointed.
Each July across NSW the state's selective high schools notify students who were successful in their applications and those that failed to make the grade.
This year, a record 14,458 year 6 students sat the test, competing for 4226 places across 19 fully selective and 29 partially selective schools.
But as those students prepare to begin their high school education serious questions are now being asked as to whether the state's selective high school system serves the community as it was intended to by its creators.
NSW has more selective schools than any other state, and due to their demonstrable success they are more popular today than ever before.
As Fairfax Media reported earlier this month, a new discussion paper has found that securing a spot in one of these schools requires such investment of time and money that almost three quarters of their students come from the highest quarter of socio-educational advantage. Only two per cent come from the lowest.
As a result student bodies at selective schools, which were originally designed to provide environments of academic excellence to public school students, are now typically more advantaged than those of private schools.
The coaching that some of those students go through is so rigorous in the months before, or even years leading up to, their entrance exam that they effectively work a six-day school week.
The paper, Institutionalised Separation, produced by the Centre for Policy Development, argues that rather than promoting inclusion and equity the selective school system was "increasingly putting socio-educationally advantaged students in a 'class of their own'."
Critics of the system note that the absence of such dedicated students - and their parents - from comprehensive schools strips the broader school system of diversity, resources and morale.
Associate Professor Philip Parker from the Australian Catholic University sees a correlation between the growth of the selective system and the marked decline in Australia's educational performance.
"The correlation is quite strong," he told The Sun-Herald.
The proportion of Australian students achieving the top two bands in maths, reading and science in the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests fell significantly from 20 per cent, 17 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively in 2000 to 11 per cent in 2015 for all three areas.
Debate over the role and efficacy of the selective school system is not new.
As far back as 2002 the NSW government recieved - and ignored - advice on the reform of the system from an inquiry chaired by the University of NSW's Tony Vinson. Vinson recommended maintaining only seven of the state's original selective schools and returning other students to the comprehensive system.
At present the NSW government is reviewing the selection process.
The current education minister, Rob Stokes, has made his concerns about the system clear.
"While recognising that selective schools have a history and are popular, is it correct that local kids must walk past a local public selective school that is closed to them?" he said in January.
"We need to have public schools that are inclusive of everyone rather than deliberately separate children on the basis that some are gifted and talented and others are not."
It is time Mr Stokes considered expanding his inquiry to consider the benefits of the selective system not only to its own students, but to all the students the state has the duty to educate.