Retention of VELS subjects for VCE

[taiga]

One of the things that always annoys me is the fact that subjects such as Geography, which everyone in the state has done at some stage, have such little students for VCE (comparatively).

The board of education (or whoever) obviously think that such subjects are useful for students, and having done Geography myself, I think I took alot more practical knowledge out of it as I did from say, Specialist Maths or Physics. Are there any reasons why Art, Geography, etc. have such little interest, or is it just that people think they are not as applicable to society?

[bomb]

Maybe because they aren't pre-requisites? A lot of schools might not even run it because of a lack of interest. Also theres awesome scaling in Spec/Meth.

Or maybe they find it irrelevant to their career path?

[EvangelionZeta]

To some extent, I would argue that we're living in a science-dominated age, where people aren't willing to believe that anything other than cold, hard facts could be applicable towards life.  

The more obvious response, however, is that a lot of university courses require subjects such as Chemistry and Methods, leading people to take them.  Also, in terms of sciences, there are only four/five (depending on how elitist you are) real subjects.  In contrast, for humanities students (which is the core student-base for subjects such as Geography), there are many more subjects you can take, meaning that said students get spread out more widely, leading to smaller, but more plentiful humanities subjects.

[azngirl456]

At my old school, geography, history, civic studies and legal studies were all combined in SOSE which you had to do from year 7 to 10. Now the teacher you got was able to be bias against some subjects, placing emphasis on the subjects they enjoy teaching and only covering a little theory on the other subjects.

Now when it came to choosing VCe subjects, most people had no idea that what they were doing in SOSE was history, geography etc... And since there was limited interest VCe classes in these subjects couldn't be run.

Oh and not to mention that some people would want to avoid choosing certain humanities subjects because they don't like writing essays and they think the marking scheme can be ambiguous. There's also not as wide range of humanities resources out there if you're stuck and sometimes humanities courses are too Australian based.

[appianway]

A lot of people may disagree with this, but I think that there should be more compulsory subjects in the VCE. The VCE isn't just something to encourage people to complete higher study; it's a qualification. I think that it's bizarre that maths/science isn't enforced, and students should have to study a humanities subject or a language. I also think that there should be more prerequisites for courses such as arts and law: a student who scored 99 with 35 in English and super high scaled scores in specialist maths, methods, physics and accounting isn't more suited to these courses than a student with 45 in English and straight 40s in their other humanities subjects.

[vexx]

^If you want to do compulsory subjects then do IB, some would be miserable if there was more compulsory subjects (English).

[azngirl456]

^If you want to do compulsory subjects then do IB, some would be miserable if there was more compulsory subjects (English).

The government won't allow public schools to offer IB.

[vexx]

^If you want to do compulsory subjects then do IB, some would be miserable if there was more compulsory subjects (English).

The government won't allow public schools to offer IB.

aww, well just embrace the positives of doing VCE over IB then! no CAS hours, extended essays, TOK, can do 5 subjects in year 12 if wanted, shorter exams.. etc.

[pi]

^If you want to do compulsory subjects then do IB, some would be miserable if there was more compulsory subjects (English).

The government won't allow public schools to offer IB.

Werribee Secondary College (a public school out in the west -with really low 'fees') offers both VCE and IB. I know coz my younger brother went there in yrs 7 and 8.

But in response to taiga's original post in regard to interest in subjects like geo, its a good point to make because it probably has more real life applications than spesh and other such subjects. Strange, maybe quality of teachers? (but then again, this school-to-school...)

[azngirl456]

^If you want to do compulsory subjects then do IB, some would be miserable if there was more compulsory subjects (English).

The government won't allow public schools to offer IB.

Werribee Secondary College (a public school out in the west -with really low 'fees') offers both VCE and IB. I know coz my younger brother went there in yrs 7 and 8.

But in response to taiga's original post in regard to interest in subjects like geo, its a good point to make because it probably has more real life applications than spesh and other such subjects. Strange, maybe quality of teachers? (but then again, this school-to-school...)

What?! The school council at Mac.Rob says that we can't have IB because we're next to a big busy road and we'll have to cease all parent contributions if we implement the IB course.

With that said, wasn't MHS pushing for IB but The DEECDs wouldn't allow it?

[vexx]

^ azngirl that makes little sense that Mac.Rob said that.. Wesley college is down the road from you on the same "busy road" and does IB?

[azngirl456]

^ azngirl that makes little sense that Mac.Rob said that.. Wesley college is down the road from you on the same "busy road" and does IB?

Yeh I thought that was a strange thing to say too. How does a busy road severely interfere with learning? Like if you were in the classrooms near kings way, you could hear a little of the traffic but it's not so loud that it's deafening.

Wesley college is on st kilda road, so it's less busy than kings way and it's got trams (lucky). But yes, it's an odd explanation to give on why a school is prevented from offering IB due to a road.

[pi]

^ azngirl that makes little sense that Mac.Rob said that.. Wesley college is down the road from you on the same "busy road" and does IB?

Yeh I thought that was a strange thing to say too. How does a busy road severely interfere with learning? Like if you were in the classrooms near kings way, you could hear a little of the traffic but it's not so loud that it's deafening.

Wesley college is on st kilda road, so it's less busy than kings way and it's got trams (lucky). But yes, it's an odd explanation to give on why a school is prevented from offering IB due to a road.

+1, that point makes no sense at all.  I don't think the government wants selective schools to get International Accreditation.

[azngirl456]

^ azngirl that makes little sense that Mac.Rob said that.. Wesley college is down the road from you on the same "busy road" and does IB?

Yeh I thought that was a strange thing to say too. How does a busy road severely interfere with learning? Like if you were in the classrooms near kings way, you could hear a little of the traffic but it's not so loud that it's deafening.

Wesley college is on st kilda road, so it's less busy than kings way and it's got trams (lucky). But yes, it's an odd explanation to give on why a school is prevented from offering IB due to a road.

+1, that point makes no sense at all.  I don't think the government wants selective schools to get International Accreditation.

I used to think the government didn't want public schools to offer IB because they didn't want a lot of kids educated on taxpayers money to leave the country, graduate at an overseas university and get a job overseas.

[taiga]

MHS said no IB as because it's a public school everyone has to pay the same fees, so essentially it'd have to be spread out equally over the whole cohort, raising school fees considerably.

MacRob won't do IB because they're at the top of the game with the current system. It's not like if you get a 99.95 ATAR, there are going to be international institutions going OMG ATAR AND NO IB, THAT SOUNDS FAKE.