I think the main problem is that many parents are sending their children to coaching colleges prior to sitting the SSET (and perhaps the OC test too), so they can be sure to get their children the places there. The children may not necessarily be thinking much of it, but just grow up thinking that coaching is a normal thing for kids.
Please excuse me if you think this is 'racism', but Asian parents are reportedly notorious of sending their children to coaching colleges for this purpose. The results are that this year, when the first year 7 class of 30 stood up to be taken on tour by prefects, there were 29 Asians and one Indian. The next class had maybe 3-4 Anglo/European, 1 Indian and the 25-6 Asian. The class I had to take had 2 Anglo/European, 1 Indian, 27 Asian. Similar figures hold for the remaining 3 classes.
So these kids are being coached to get into the schools in the first place. From there, perhaps not all of them will need coaching, but a lot of them still tend to get it. Some need it, others just want it because it's what they are used to. I can't disagree in saying that not every teacher is great at our school, but then again, what ever stops children from going to a teacher at lunch times and asking things, or seeking another (better) teacher?
Another reason some want coaching is 'to be ahead', or to have it because the person next to them has it. Really though, if people didn't need the coaching, then they would be able to handle learning it at a normal pace (in my opinion).
I don't have any problems with coaching for people who actually need help, and when that need is warranted. An example is my cousin, who isn't really too bright at Maths, and who goes to a school out west which ranked below 400th in the 2008 HSC. However, I don't think it should be warranted at selective schools.
Yes, it seems like that. But I think to be fair, one has to look at the idea of aspirational parents among the Anglo-Celtic population as well. What I seem to find is
1/ Most Anglo-Celtic kids that come from middle class aspirational parents who send their kids to music lessons and follow all the way to complete their music education also manage to get their kids into public selective schools or elite private schools. They also hire one-on-one private tutors. That's why one-on-one music tutors also tend to offer math and English tutoring too.
2/ Anglo-Celtic aspirational parents tend to be picky when it comes to sending kids to a preschool. They look for structured learning for their babies! They look for childcare/preschool places that provide early learning to get a leg up for their kids.
There is no doubt that Asian parents hope to send their kids to best schools so they often get coaching for their kids to sit for OC and selective school tests. However I think there is so much potential in all Caucasian kids that they have not exploited. If they only learn at normal public schools, it's unlikely to get a good education because the quality of teachers is a real problem at this moment. Educational courses take in the lowest UAIs date back from the 80s when it was actually under 50%! The students at that time often did not learn any subject (at University) that they were going to teach later. For example, they could become a math teacher even though they failed their maths at HS badly ( and therefore allowed to do math in University).
It's a perception that Asian kids compete with Caucasian for places in selective school classes but the truth is that they try to compete with the top Caucasian kids in elite private schools for high UAI to enter Universities.
So the Caucasian kids that hope to enter selective schools are victims of the clash between elite private schools and selective schools.
I also observe that the English comprehension level of Anglo-celtic kids is very high among the smart ones. I also have reasons to beleive that they could have high GA ability if they want to work on it. So the only real issue is mathematics where if they don't have a tutor, they are stuffed. Public primary schools don't teach any difficult mathematics.
In the USA, a lot of American kids "hate" mathematics. Some ofthem claim "I am born mathematically crippled". Of course this is ridiculous. They like other subjects like social sciences because they are a lot more fun. So it's teh liking that is the problem.
Alsi I think there is a bit of issue with the level of mathematics of parents who come from the 50s and 60s. As they were lazy and did not study math, they could not help their kids right now. Therefore not spending money on coaching means the kids have no chance at mathematics.
In a real life case, I know that Caucasian kids at a public schools scored between 15%-30% when a teacher gave them a real math test. The best of the Caucasian kids scored about 63% versus over 80% by the top Asian kids. When the teacher ask the caucasian kids to work harder in math, some of them called him "crap" and told him "why don't you stop picking on me?". So he gave them detention! The school continutes to try to lift math level for the kids (very few Asian kids go to this school) but it's a tough business especially trying to help the boys.
