(no subject)

[krazykitkat]

A very interesting article:

Public school students who leave year 12 with lower marks than their private school rivals overtake them academically once they hit the "level playing field" of university.


A couple of years ago I had one of the uni physics lecturers say to me that public school students generally do better than the private school students at uni. He thought it may've had something to do with some private schools spoon feeding/teaching students to pass exams, or that public school students are just used to making do without much.

Comments

[littleloonlost.livejournal.com]

I've read similar pieces about students here, as I see it says at the bottom of the article you linked. I don't find it at all hard to believe. I went to a lousy state school until my last year (well, last six months) I had a brief experience of a good school (not fee-paying, but in a wealthier area) and I was totally bowled over by just how easy they'd had it. Not so much spoon feeding, just the fact that teachers were able to actually teach, whereas I was used to teachers spending all their time struggling with troublemakers. I couldn't handle the culture shock and quit.

I feel pupils from poorer schools have to do it all themselves, seek out the knowledge in their own time, and also get by in a social culture that punishes (often brutally, and I'm wincing at memories here) educational achievement. You have to really want it.

Which, on reading the article again after rambling on, was an anecdotal way of saying the same thing. One day I'll master the art of the brief comment that doesn't get all personal.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

My question is, since when have we used the term "comprehensive school" in this country? I've never seen it before, and this is now the third time in a week. (All in the SMH, though, so is this a NSW thing?) I keep assuming the articles are about the UK.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

That fits with my experience. My ex-boyfriend went to the most prestigious school in Brisbane, but I (coming from a rough little country state school) ran rings around him at uni. (He still tells people that he's my intellectual superior, but that's just a side-effect of being an ass-hole.)

I think that state school students have more to lose if they can't cope with uni, so we have to work harder. Otherwise, there's no family business or alternative but menial jobs and Centrelink.