The Forum > General Discussion > UNSW branded 'elitist' for setting ATAR benchmark of 80
UNSW branded 'elitist' for setting ATAR benchmark of 80
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You wrote;
“I think we actually want the same thing csteele. We disagree on the measures.”
I'm not even sure that we entirely disagree even on those.
But there will be a generation of primarily public school kids who without some assistance with ATAR scores now will miss out. These are good kids, struggling in a poorly funded system, and if some sort of affirmative action is required as an interim until we get the system sorted out then so be it.
Hopefully we can get past what my daughter had to put up with, things like class biology films on VHS constantly interrupted by the teacher explaining why key points were not current any more, plus some really shoddy relief teachers.
I am constantly surprised just how much more responsible this generation is than mine. We are failing them.
I have sat and listened to the aspirations of my daughter's friends gradually diminish, especially in their VCE year. For the vast majority an ATAR of 80, the base UNSW score, is just a fantasy, achievable by only a few. Most of these kids work 2-3 nights a week (some of the money going to support single parent families), do not have access to tutors, nor in many cases tertiary educated parents. How are they meant to compete with a Melbourne Grammar student without some form of assistance with their score? Or have we given up the notion that they ever should?
We need to get fair dinkum as a nation about Gonski and I will say that State governments, who seem to be finding less and less money for public education, despite the enormous growth of the private sector, probably need to just get out of the way and leave it to the federal government.