Educational structures
By Carlia Slade, Leibler Yavneh College
‘Who else feels like VCE is destroying your life?. Kelilah Fitzgerald. ‘VCE makes me want to end myself’. Jonah Barnett.
These are just a couple of posts from the Facebook VCE discussion group, highlighting the adverse impact the VCE system has on young peoples’ mental health. Further, the pressure encouraged by the VCE system diminishes the importance of education and therefore should be reformed. We must say goodbye to a system that fails to prepare students for the very real demands of life after school.
Students are determining their own self-worth, based on artificial VCE rankings. Young people’s mental health is extremely delicate yet, VCAA flings it around like a rag doll. Mental health organisation “Reach Out’s” 2018 survey revealed that 65.1% of young Australians aged between 14-25 experience worrying levels of psychological distress, the main source of which is school related expectations. Is it not ironic that VCAA includes a wellbeing page on their website while simultaneously being the root of psychological distress?
I acknowledge that competitiveness can be healthy. It can be motivating to do one’s best. However, competitiveness in this case has been redefined to behave almost maliciously in attempts to rank higher. Like not sharing notes and providing peers with misleading information.
Personally, some of my closest friends experience violent panic attacks just from sitting in class, paralysed by the fear of being incapable of performing to a sufficiently high standard. My classmates and I are forced to measure our intelligence through a lens of competition and comparison, which has negative ramifications on our self-esteem. As mental health disorders amongst young people in Victoria soar, I urge you to consider the immeasurable role this ranking system contributes to this problem.
In Finland, at no point are students ever ranked, selected or subject to standardised testing. There is an inherit focus on “equity over excellence”, where students learn foundational skills at their own pace. Students have the choice between vocational studies and a general upper secondary education. Teachers don’t have to answer to a higher power in testing their students’ knowledge- they create their own grading systems. Students are graded on an individual basis because that’s what we are. Individuals.
A United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF report found that 71.7% of 15-year-old Australians are achieving baseline educational standards while 81.4% of 15-year-old Finnish students are achieving those standards. That’s a 10% difference. Additionally, legislation passed in 2014 requires teachers to be attentive to students’ psychological, social, health and welfare issues. Education should be an institution that is a framework for our futures, in both fiscal means, like getting a job, but also our wellbeing and mental health. The Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing found, in a report published in July 2020, that nearly 1 in 2 Australians, or 46% will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime. At the same time, in a study conducted by the European Union, only 1 in 5 are affected by mental health disorders in Finland.
This is still high, but significantly lower than the shocking statistics surrounding mental health in Australia. Dr. Silja Kosola practiced as a school doctor and now works as the medical director of the city of Helsinki’s (capital of Finland) medical services. She describes the Finnish education system as “close to perfection” in terms of both student learning and wellbeing. The holistic approach Finland adopts is based upon an unwavering focus on quality and applicability of their education, which is a testament to the success of their education system.
In stark contrast, Australian education has become an institution of a means to an end, where we sit in class robotically taking notes to boost ranking rather than… truly learning. We walk out of our English exam and burn the books, vowing to never read again. Each subject is kept in their individual silo, young people view it as isolated information, inapplicable to other aspects of their lives.
I attend a Jewish school, with Jewish values. We are people of the book. Our traditions live through reading, teaching, and internalising our values. Not studying for tests. Despite these intrinsic values, Jewish schools tend to be a cesspool of stress. Encouraging students to aim for a 90 ATAR and no less, or you won’t take VCE assessed. This inane approach makes a mockery of the education system, prioritising rankings, scores and ATARs before eternal learning.
So, I’ve done all this complaining and I haven’t actually provided plausible solutions to this problem. First and foremost, we must recognise that change is only ever meaningfully enacted bidirectionally. It must come from both students and the VCAA, ATAR, tertiary acceptance people).
Students currently undertaking their VCE/HSC/WACE, that are subject to the ATAR system must acknowledge the toxic competitiveness that comes from the ranking system. By acknowledging this competitiveness, we can begin to call out toxic behaviour exhibited by our peers, and ourselves. We must understand that being thrust into this cutthroat environment only results in blatant apathy towards each other. Once we acknowledge and call out passive aggressive behaviour, we can then meaningfully uplift our peers. Encourage each other with no ulterior motives. Be able to be truly happy for each other’s’ achievements, boosting mental health and self-esteem.
This mental shift can only come if our alleged leaders of education promote change. This means education legislators, tertiary institutions, you VCAA.
Rewarding students on the basis of work ethic. Merit and desire would be a great place to start. Tertiary acceptance on the basis of those things would be another great place to start. Instead of rewarding those who the system coincidentally happens to work for, it is necessary to note that change is never sudden or easy. However, when we are stuck in this mindset of ‘it's too hard’ or ‘that's the way things’ are emerging, generations of students will be forever trapped in a system that fails them.
When we learn in that environment, that doesn't require the mental gymnastics of: ‘if I get a high here, then I can get this rank, which means I can be did this rank, and et cetera, et cetera,’ we'll be able to meaningfully retain the information taught to us
Coming out of the years of COVID 19, we've seen the drastic changes in how major corporations run their businesses. Every sector has been forced to adapt to this new world and I fail to see how this does not apply to this antiquated education system.
Timo Hakinin a Helsinki principle, with 24 years of teaching experience. One said, ‘if you only measure the statistics, you miss out on the human aspect.’ The ATAR system focuses solely on the statistics on the numbers, on the rankings. If education is not ultimately for providing students human beings with equality, acceptable and transferable education, what's it for?