[Ali -]

Oliver has sparked a thread full of well thought out and positively argued comments.

Firstly, Oliver, the way in which you construct your sentences and express yourself is second to none.

This debate of public vs private has been igniting similar debates across the community, media and academic circles. I would have to agree with Oliver to a large extent due to the following:

* due to the relative lack of overall funds available (Gov't + school fees), an inequality is established from the outset in terms of attainable resourcing;

* those that have attended both public and private schools would have observed the stark difference in the 'learning environment':
(i) teachers at private schools spend less time trying to control the class, hence, instead of spending the entire time teaching material, public teachers devote less time on instruction. Public students, therefore, cover less material or, if lucky, have the material crammed by their teacher to make up lost time
(ii) private schools with reputations for academic success have an inherent competitive environment. Fellow students 'push' each other to strive to be number one. Public schools lack that competitive aspect or have one to a much lesser extent. Thus, a student who is the number 1 at a public school may be internally competing against only a handful of genuine class mates whereas at private school classes you have many to 'beat'. This increased level of competition increases ones own performance. Just like playing at the AFL level compared to the VFL. Would Andre Agassi have reached his level of ability without exposure to Pete Sampras?
(iii) at some public schools, students refrain from trying their best so as to not stick out but be accepted instead
(iv) you won't find paper planes flying around virtually all class at a private school
* private school students are more spoon fed by their teachers than public students

{Please note: the above are 'generalisations' and that there are always exceptions to virutally every rule}

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 'if' you were to clone an individual and place one in a private school and the other in a public, that WITHOUT a doubt, and ALL ESLE BEING EQUAL, that the one who attended the private school would graduate with a higher ENTER score. ENTER scores are not I.Q. scores. So although their I.Q. levels should be equal, "environment" would be responsible to the discrepency in ENTER scores.

Just as they 'scale' subjects according to difficulty, the more learned need to work out a scaling system for those not able to access a high school which maximise a student's potential. (Guess they came up with the SEAS system. But that is for the middle band selection.) I believe that a student who achieves an 88 ENTER at Kealba or Springvale is equivalent to a 95 ENTER at Xavier.

Previous comments in this thread mentioned some public schools such as Melbourne High and MacRobertsons do perform well. They are select entry schools! And the other public schools which do fairly well are Balwyn and McKinnon etc...all of which are zoned in expensive suburbs. Thus, 'resourcing' again.

I also adhere to the notion that public school graduates will outperform their counterparts due to them being more acclimatised to 'independent' learning and study.

But the delimna for the public student performing well at Uni, is the hurdle of actually obtaining the ENTER for their Uni course!

** But what is the alternative? There is none at the moment. No system is perfect. Universities must attempt to use a form of 'objective' measuring re: offers as subjective ones are indeed too difficult and inconsistent.

It is not the fault of private school students that they are advantaged. They are being rewarded due to either hardworking parents or the upper socio-economic class their forefathers managed to attain in the past.

But let's not also suggest public school students are on a level playing field as their private school counterparts.

In the end, no system is perfect and "don't hate the player. Hate the game".