I now have a theory as to why this is. I think it has to do with the publicity (well in my case) of these more academic based subjects. I don't know what most schools are like, but this is what my school was like.
At the start of year 12, I decided to do MX2 as I always liked maths. 4 other people did it with me, which is a lot for my school considering, other then my year, in the past 13 years only 2 people had done it or something like that. Anyways, my principal wanted to cancel the course at the start of the year as he thought it was too hard and we weren't good enough to do it. I then got 99% in my first exam (stupid mistakes
) and E4 in both MX1 and MX2 in the HSC. Now, you'd think the school/community would be happy with someone doing well in these more academic based subjects, though the other day, the people who got 90+ atars had interviews with the local paper. We told the guy our atar, what we got 90+ in, and what we wanted to do next year. In the paper, they mentioned how people got 90+ in art, textiles, legal studies, music, ancient history etc. There was no mention of my result in maths, they just said my atar and what I planned to do.
So it seems to me that people nowdays don't really publicize the academic subjects, and they discourage people who try to do them. Throughout school theres always been awards for drama, music, trade subjects, but there is little recognition for people who do well in these academic subjects.
I don't know if this is just my area, or my school (I live on the mid north coast, so im not in some big sydney school
) but it really seems like the schools don't like kids doing these kinds of subjects. Probably only like 20% of my year did any science subjects, if that. It is disappointing. Theres needs to be more publicity, more competitions to involve kids in science to try to encourage them, rather push them away.
Again, I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but that's just my 2 cents.
