The Higher School Certificate (or ‘HSC’ for all you hip
jivin’ youngsters) marks the culmination of six years of secondary education
for around 60,000 New South Wales students each year.
During the final exam/assessment
period, students endure a stressful marathon of weeks honing essay paragraph
structure, memorising historical dates, binge-reciting foreign syntax, quoting
famous figures, scrawling formula procedures, perfecting performances and
polishing up the finishing touches on woodworks/ metalworks/ artworks and food…
works… until an exhausted meatpuppet of educated humanity is plopped out the
other end as a cookie-cutter adult ready to mould themselves further in the
tertiary academic world.
To ensure a fair marking process for the HSC, all students are assigned an ID
number so that markers are unable to discern the identity of the student being
marked. (Albeit, several subjects cannot avoid face-to-face judging, seeing as certain
performance-based Drama, Music, Dance and Visual Art assessments rely upon an individual
being marked in person, and a significant chunk of foreign language subjects
require engaging in discussion with an external marker vis-a-vis.)
As a general overview, however, the anonymity afforded to HSC students provides
an interesting overview of how different genders and ethnicities objectively perform
in various subjects year after year. Pedantic comedians such as yours truly
therefore have fair grounds to take these non-biased results and spin
stereotypical commentary from them regarding which subjects will favour certain
demographics.
In conclusion, here are my predictions as to who will top
which subjects for the 2014 HSC based on previous years’ results…
* All First In Course information sourced
below is available on the NSW Board Of Education website and is published in
newspapers every year
* All demographic data is sourced from the 2011 Australian Census and MySchool website
* Some subjects may have had joint ‘First In Course’ winners in a given year
* Some subjects may not have existed until more recent years, or may no longer
exist
* If the highest
achiever in a course failed to get a mark over 90, there was no ‘First In
Course’ certificate awarded for that year.
* If in doubt over
an individual’s heritage or gender, they were omitted from profiling.
I quite literally Facebook/Google stalked every
winner to ensure accurate bigotry
WHICH SCHOOLS PERFORM
BEST IN THE HSC?
Ranking high schools according to the percentage of students
who score in the highest band for an HSC course (Distinguished Achievers) is
the method used to measure HSC success; however fluctuations between individual
years can see a school shifting dramatically up or down the ranking.
Generally, though, selective government schools around
the Sydney area are the elite performers and consistently clock up the best
results, with private inner-city schools also performing solidly. Schools are assigned an Index of Community
Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) rating with a median score of 1000, based
on the financial wellbeing of the families attending the school. An ICSEA rating of 500
would indicate the most impoverished schools in the nation, 1,300 would represent
the most affluent.
- James Ruse Agricultural High School scores top of the pack in the HSC year after
year, with a considerable margin before second place. The school has a 97%
student population from a language background other than English. It’s… it’s really
Asian is what I’m saying.
ICSEA rating: 1249
- Baulkham Hills High School has ranked 2nd and 5th
in the past two years respectively, and is another selective government school
with a 94% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1200
- Hornsby Girls High School has ranked 3rd and 6th in the
past two years respectively, and is another selective government school with an
88% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1229
- North Sydney Boys High has ranked 4th and 2nd
in the past two years respectively, and is another selective government school
with a 90% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1216
- North Sydney Girls High has ranked 5th and 3rd
in the past two years respectively, and is another selective government school
with a 90% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1216
- Sydney Girls High School has ranked 6th and 4th
in the past two years respectively, and is another selective government school
with an 82% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1196
- Sydney Boys High School has ranked 7th and 8th
in the past two years respectively, and is another selective government school
with a 90% non-English-heritage student population.
ICSEA rating: 1205
You get the gist.
There are around 800 secondary schools in NSW. In 2013, 47 out of the top 50 HSC results came from the
Sydney area.
(See below.)
To put that into perspective, ~95% of the best high schools in all of NSW fit
inside this red circle:
In Australia, it is evident that money
gets you good marks in education. From the small pockets of dots seen around affluent
inner city suburbs, you can expect private schools full of Jews and Catholics. The more widely spread dots generally represent selective
public schools which tend to be dominated by well-off Asian and Indian students.
-
22 of the top 50 high schools have a high
Chinese population.
-
14 of the top 50 high schools have a high South
African (Jewish) population.
-
6 of the top 50 high schools have a high Indian
population.
Indigenous students in NSW and Australiawide are
generally outliers of low academic performance, low attendance rates and high
dropout rates for high school. A quick overview of ICSEA scores and Aboriginal
student enrolment at the top-performing high schools in NSW reflects this issue rather
evidently, but is an entirely different thread of discussion altogether.
NUMBER OF HSC
ENTRIES BY YEAR
*Based off
combining the number of students studying English Advanced, English Standard or
English As A Second Language, seeing as English is the only mandatory subject
for all students across the board.
2003 – 60,000
2004 – 60,000
2005 – 60,000
2006 – 60,000
2007 – 61,000
2008 – 62,000
2009 – 63, 000
2010 – 64,000
2011 – 64,000
2012 – 62, 000
2013 – 61, 000
SO, WHO WILL
FINISH FIRST IN COURSE FOR THE 2014 HSC?
Aboriginal Studies
A White girl from Cheltenham Girls High School.
For 3 out of the past 4 years, a Cheltenham Girls High School student has
topped Aboriginal Studies for the HSC. Their school has an ICSEA value of 1146
and a 0% Aboriginal population.
Accounting
A Chinese girl attending a Sydney Institute campus.
From 2003-2012, the Sydney Institute and
its northern campuses (Petersham, Northern Beaches and Hornsby) produced 11
First In Course wins for Accounting.
[Alas, it appears Accounting is no longer included in the HSC Syllabus. This was a shoe-in.]
Agriculture
A Chinese girl from James Ruse Agricultural High School.
From 2001-2013, 8
students who received First In Course for Agriculture have come from James Ruse
Agricultural High School and 7 over that time were Chinese girls.
Arabic Continuers
and Arabic Extension
The same Lebanese girl for both subjects.
From 2001-2013, there have been 10
occasions where the same student topped both Arabic Continuers and Arabic
Extension.
Biology
*WILDCARD*
Genderwise, Biology is anyone’s for the
taking. That said, Abbotsleigh has outdone James Ruse with winners here 4:3 so
I’ll put my money on them taking back the crown this year with a White girl
posing behind a microscope for her photo in the newspaper.
Chemistry
A Chinese girl from James Ruse or Baulko.
From 2001-2013, Baulkham Hills has
produced 3 Chemistry winners and James Ruse has produced 4 Chemistry winners. 8
Chinese girls notched up a Chemistry win over that time.
Chinese Background
Speakers, Chinese Continuers and Chinese Extension
A Chinese student from a single-sex Sydney school.
From 2001-2013, there have been 14 First
In Course wins clocked up by Chinese students for Background Speakers, 12 for
Continuers and 10 for Extension.
Some may scoff that
this is as an obvious outcome, but note that one HSC student in 2012 topped French
Extension, German Extension AND Italian Continuers and Italian Extension.
Furthermore, Chinese
students have also topped the following language courses:
- English As A Second Language: 11
times
- English Advanced: Twice
- English Extension 1: 6
times in the last 9 years
- English Extension 2: Twice
- Classical Greek
Continuers: 5 times
- Classical Greek
Extension: 3 times
- Dutch Continuers:
Once
- French Beginners:
Once
- French
Continuers: 3
times
- French Extension:
Twice
- German Beginners:
Once
- German Extension:
Once
- Italian
Beginners: Twice
- Latin Continuers:
5 times
- Latin Extension: 4 times
- Spanish
Beginners: 4
times
Considering that European languages use the same alphabet as English, one can
generally infer that somebody of Asian background would have more difficulty
than an Anglo student would in studying those languages. Also, there would be
plenty of English As A Second Language students who are not Chinese (ie. from
other areas of Asia, Europe or the Middle East) so the dominance of Chinese
students in the HSC is indeed notable when considering the ratio of students in
Australia, as outlined below:
873,275 Australians identified as speaking a Chinese language in the 2011
Australian Census, or 3.9% of the population.
Adding together the remaining Asian, Middle Eastern and European languages
spoken in Australia, there were 2,107,805 other individuals from a
non-English-speaking background, or 9.4% of the population. That would leave 19,480,480
native English speakers.
AUSTRALIA 22,340,000
ASIAN 1,304,518
*Chinese 371,357
Vietnamese 278,236
*Cantonese 244,553
*Mandarin 220,601
Tagalog 39,643
Korean 39,529
Indonesian 38,724
*Other Chinese 36,764
Japanese 35,111
EUROPEAN 1,264,478
Italian 316,890
Greek 252,220
Serbian 95,365
French 93,593
Spanish 78,878
German 76,443
Macedonian 67,836
Croatian 63,611
Polish 53,387
Maltese 41,393
Dutch 40,188
Russian 36,501
Hungarian 24,485
Portuguese 23,688
MIDDLE EASTERN 319,593
Arabic 243,662
Turkish 50,693
Persian 25,238
SOUTH ASIAN 92,491
Hindi 47,817
Tamil 24,074
Sinhalese 20,600
Assuming <4% of
HSC students are Chinese, this demographic forms a clear outlier in academic
performance every year. One would expect 2-3 times as many non-Chinese foreign
students to be topping ESL, but this is simply not the case.
White Australian
students outnumber Chinese students a whopping 22 times, yet Chinese students
repeatedly dominate several HSC subjects over this enormous disparity.
The stereotype that
Asians study a lot is thus completely verified by over a decade of objectively
marked data. That’s… that’s all
I really wanted to get at in this exercise.
The rest of this is
just complete filler so I don’t appear to be a total racist.
I can be totally
sexist, too.
Dance
Never, ever ever, a boy or an ethnic.
White girls from
performing arts schools and college campuses have won this subject 13 years in
a row. 95% of Dance students are female. Everyone knows Asians are unco. You do
not stand a chance. All hail J’amie.
Drama
A White girl from the Northern Beaches named Amelia.
The last 12 winners
in a row for Drama have been White girls.
3 of them have been
named Amelia.
Like, really now,
what are the fucking chances of that.
Economics
A Chinese student from a single-sex Sydney school.
Over the last 5
years, 4 Chinese students from a single-sex Sydney school took First In Course
for Economics. Despite a 60/40 gender split, boys and girls top Economics
evenly so a fair playing field genderwise.
Engineering
Never, ever ever, a girl.
Year after year after year, over 96.5% of
Engineering students are boys. It may be a Chinese boy from a Sydney boys
school who tops this course. It may be a White boy from a country town who tops
this course. It may be a Lebanese boy studying distance who tops this course.
IT WILL BE A BOY.
English (Advanced)
*WILDCARD*
With over half of all HSC students studying Advanced each year, First In Course
for this subject jumps between boys and girls of all backgrounds, though
dominantly from around the Sydney area.
My money leans slightly towards a girl, and I’ll have a random 1-in-a-thousand
crack at Pymble pulling a win.
English (Standard)
A White girl from a
single-sex school.
Inarguably the most
studied course for the HSC, White girls have been fairly dominant in Standard
English over the past decade, so despite the 30,000+ variables involved, this
one is a pretty solid bet.
English Extension
1
A Chinese girl from a North Shore school.
With 5 wins in the
past 8 years, Chinese girls are slogging this course a solid new one.
English Extension
2
*WILDCARD*
Jumping about First In Course laureates
year after year from city to country, boy to girl, White to Asian, this subject
based on a major work submission is more subjectively marked by judges and thus
open to fluctuating demographic strengths.
I’ll hazard a 50/50
on a White girl from Moriah or a Chinese boy from Barker.
Food Studies
Never, ever ever, a boy.
Despite ¼th -1/3rd
of Food Studies students being boys, girls have won this subject every single
year since 2001.
Say what you will
about Feminism, but I think over a decade of data covering tens of thousands of
students displays a little scientific cred in gender stereotyping here.
French Beginners,
French Continuers and French Extension
*WILDCARD*
Second language studies open up the chance of a First In
Course to everyone on a fairly even playing field, so no surprises that a
variety of ethnicities show up over the years.
That said, girls have the edge on Continuers and French Extension so I’ll guess
at a White Pymble girl win for those two, and for Beginners, a random ethnic boy
from West Sydney for good measure.
Geography
*WILDCARD*
Another subject with
no set demographic displaying dominance in the field.
Abbotsleigh has put
its finger in the pie more than once but I’m gunning for a Hornsby Girls or
Masada foot in the door this year.
German Beginners,
German Continuers and German Extension
*WILDCARD*
Like French, girls
have the slight edge on Continuer and Extension, but unlike French, the
surnames here all sound like names you’d hear on a Winter Olympics podium. I say Eastern
European boy for Beginners and Eastern European girl for the other two.
Ancient History,
Modern History and History Extension
Whiteys.
Ancient History - A
White boy from a private Catholic school around Sydney. (Although those White
girls from a private Catholic school around Sydney will sure give them a run
for their money.)
Modern History – 50/50
between a White girl from the North Shore or a Chinese girl from a Girls’
School.
History Extension –
With only 2 boys topping this course over 13 years, a White girl from a random rural school you’ve never
heard of should take Extension.
Italian Beginners,
Continuers and Extension
Going against the usual language trend, boys dominate
Continuers and Extension.
Italian Beginners –
a White girl from Santa Sabina College.
Italian Continuers
– a White boy from Sydney Grammar School.
Italian Extension –
the same boy who won Continuers.
Japanese Beginners
A Vietnamese or South Korean girl at a Western Sydney
school
Japanese Continuers
is hands-down the domain of natives, but Beginners has had numerous other South East Asian
surnames in the mix.
Latin Continuers
and Latin Extension
A Chinese boy from Sydney Grammar School
Sydney Grammar School has notched up 8
First In Course awards for Latin over the years, though Chinese girls from Sydney
Girls’ School and White boys from SCEGS and Canberra are not to be scoffed at.
Legal Studies
*WILDCARD*
A surprising blend of genders and
regional locations for Legal Studies winners each year.
Quite literally
expecting a random name from a school that hasn’t won this before.
Mathematics
(General)
*WILDCARD*
The second-most
studied HSC subject with objective right-or-wrong answers and the most even
gender split of all subjects at an almost perfect 50/5 0ratio every year, resulting
in random First In Course wins from absolutely all over the place.
I’ll guesstimate
that General Maths is up for grabs by a random girl from an ethnic minority group
attending a school you’ve never heard of before.
Mathematics,
Mathematics Extension 1 and Mathematics Extension 2
Chinese students with an Anglo first name and ridiculously
Asian surname.
There’s a bit of a
cliché that goes ‘Asians are good at math’. I have already discussed earlier about
how a tiny minority of students repeatedly dominate academic results.
Mathematics - one
for the Asians, hands down. Chinese students have attained First In Course for
Maths 11 times from 2001-2013. James Ruse boy should take this one.
Mathematics
Extension 1 – 15 First In Course wins for Chinese students since 2001 (more
than one student may win First In Course in a given year, especially in a
subject such as Mathematics where answers are objectively right or wrong).
Let’s say a James Ruse girl win here.
Mathematics Extension
2 – 7 First In Course wins for Chinese students since 2001, I’m gonna guess a Sydney Grammar win for this year.
Modern Greek
Beginners, Greek Continuers and Greek Extension
Wogs.
Every single
surname will contain either Z, V, K or OU and end in S, I guarantee it.
Music 1, Music 2
and Music Extension
An interesting difference between the 1 and 2
demographics here.
Music 1 – A White
boy from a random bogan school
Music 2 – A Chinese
girl from Sydney
Music Extension –
The same girl who won Music 2.
Persian Background
Speakers
A terrorist.
I mean, really now.
Will you look at these surnames?
Valizadeh Baghjeghaz.
Arjomand Bigdeli
Vafaeiafraz
Darvishzadehzolpirani.
These jumbled letters are clearly
code for something . We need to get ASIO on this asap.
Personal
Development, Health and Physical Education
Surprisingly, a White girl from a rural school.
With 12/13 wins since 2001, this is
another subject dominated by White girls, despite the fact that almost twice as
many boys take this subject every year as girls. *Interesting*
I guess hiding your boner in class all the time when presented with anatomical
diagrams and sex ed videos proves too distracting.
Physics
A Chinese boy from James Ruse.
Although the ladies
poke their heads in here every now and again, Chinese boys have this one under
wraps and James Ruse is due to reclaim their sporadically-won title.
Society and
Culture
An Eastern-European girl.
Seem a bit left-of-field? I thought so,
too. But damned if it won’t be a girl with a Croatian/Serbian/Czech/Russian
sounding surname.
Software Design
& Development
A White boy from Moriah College.
One girl has
managed a First In Course for Software Design & Development since 2001, no
mean feat given the 93-94% prevalence of boys in the subject.
Studies of
Religion 1
A White boy from a private Catholic school with ‘St’ in
its name.
Because Catholicism
covers all religions, really.
Studies of
Religion 2
A White girl from a private Catholic school with ‘Lady’
in its name.
I’m guessing this
course is more Pope Francis material.
Textiles and
Design
Never, ever ever, a boy.
With a huge gender
disparity to the tune of 98.5%, it is no surprise that 15 out of 15 First In
Course awards since 2001 have been girls. (Construction has an EVEN HIGHER rate
of gender disparity!) Broughton Anglican College had a nice run a few years’
back for Textiles and Design triumphs, but I’m gearing towards a White girl
from Sydney Girls School here.
Visual Arts
A White girl from a Sydney girls’ school.
Visual Arts has
seen 12 First In Place wins for girls over the past 13 years, and 6 out of the
previous 7 wins came from a Sydney girls' school.
Well, that was a productive use of my time.
Best of luck to our future shelf-stackers, burger-flippers
and coffee servants!
And remember, the HSC is really, really important and you will totally still be
thinking and caring about it 18 months from now.
