Thank God that are only 22 million, imagine the chaos if there were more.

Hasbeen

I usually agree with most of what you say however

'Aren't you involved in home schooling? The ultimate form of streaming, & growing rapidly. It does seam a negative to me, as how can a home schooled kid access university, with no school results to assess. '

My 3 kids received quite a bit of homeschooling. One has just finished a science degree and is expecting to start medicine next year, another has 2 degrees with 1st class honours and is sitting in Parliament house at the moment while another is doing a sparky trade. This from a father who was challenged getting through high school. If you realised how stuffed the state system is (caused largely by secular dogma) you might have a slightly different view of concerned parents who see great advantage in homeschoolong.

if a young person feels that is their calling.
Poirot,
What if my calling was to just go bushwalking & cruising would you be only too happy for the taxpayer to support me ?

Poirot: "Given that a goodly portion of "schooling" is given over to the covert objective of teaching humans to line up or sit in serried rows, to react to bells and whistles, and judge their value by the number of stickers and merit certificates they collect, I suppose the segregated no-hopers can just be taught to toe the line and bugger the rest of it."

Poirot, this seems to me to be an example of the utopian but fundamentally flawed leftist view. It's always about the individual being able to express themselves and being given the freedome to escape the yoke of the oppressive classes, and all we need to do is throw more money at the problem. It seems to be rooted in the notion that successful or rich people are so because, well, they have the money and exploit everyone else. So if we all had lots of money, we'd all be OK.

Sadly real life is never like that. Throwing more money at intractable problems is unlikely to suddenly make them tractable. With education, we are constrained by societal attitudes, by parental involvement, by cultural biases, and by the fundamental problem of affording the best of everything for all.

So pragmatically, what solution gives us the best bang for the buck? Teaching people to fall into line and work for reward and recognition is unfortunately the macrocosm in microcosm. It's what we all have to deal with our whole adult life. And it is the best way to go with what we have.

Where we let the horse bolt was when we started down the slippery slope of encouraging mediocrity for all.

Poirot, Runner, how do these kids get into Uni without all the OP scores & such, or are they self funded.

I have no illusions that government schools are superior. Neither of my two would have achieved the OPs necessary to get the courses they wanted, if they had depended on the public school system. Home & outside coaching was required to get even the basics in some areas

It is the practicalities I am interested in.

I would much prefer a return to the old one big external exam at the end of school, open to everyone, home schooled & self taught as well. With that system you knew if students had actually retained anything, & could handle mild pressure. You could rate them on an equal genuine footing.

If they have retained not much, & can't handle pressure, that should be a fail, & no further public money should be wasted on them.

My son was mucking up a bit, until I pointed out to him he only got one chance. It was those who took the education system by the neck, & shook everything they wanted out of it who were the winners, not the ones who got away with things. Fortunately he got the idea.

Hasbeen

In the case of my kids they needed to be put back in the zoo for yrs 11 and 12 to obtain tertiary ranking. I do believe however that most unis now offer entrance exams for disadvantaged kids (whose parents homeschooled etc). My daughter hated her schooling experience and learn't far more at home. She was bullied and her class was literally chaos with kids making the life of teachersand students misery. Useless laws along with no discipline led to our decision to withdraw her early on. She had 5 years of homeschooling after been withdrawn. The naysayers criticised the decision however it turned out to be one of the best we could ever have made as a parents. It would of been child abuse to leave her in that situation.