Is it just me, or is there way too much to get through in the school year? Theirs a whole curriculum that has been set for all year levels, but I find that theirs just not enough time if they wanted us to complete the whole curriculum. It’s one of the big reasons why a majority of schools don’t tick certain parts of the curriculum off, such as Civics and Citizenship, or they just through a bunch of subjects together and make it one very big one.

Although there are quite a few flaws in the current education system, such as there being a large amount of content that is often rushed due to the inadequate amount of time (as James stated above), but there are positives too. I personally have enjoyed the continuous involvement of applying what we learnt in class to the real world, not only in math but in so many subjects, such as science, geography and history etc. There’s also a constant loop of feedback that really benefits the learning of students, but of course in previous years we have done that too.

I think it is interesting that employers will ask for GAT literacy and numeracy test results. I agree that it can be a good way to see students’ general abilities. But the only disadvantage I see is that it adds more stress to students with VCE subjects and some students may not do as well because of the circumstances on the day of the testing (e.g. they might have a headache or the classroom may be loud) so perhaps if instead of one big test they did more (e.g. task-based) mini-tests it would be a fairer option?

I strongly agree with James and ThePositiveBlossom;

My own opinion would also be that the current VCE curriculum is much too stressful and jam packed to be helpful or healthy for students. I think that students should be examined on the application of knowledge; not the knowledge itself, and that currently we place too much emphasis on getting the ;correct; answer when we should be looking at the meaning, thinking or working out behind it. The main problem is the rushed, pressure filled content that is crammed into too short a space of time.