Kokoro kanji Australia   : loves and hates

Permalink to today's entries Sunday, 7 April 2002

Last gasp of the Anglophiles

Every June in New South Wales, tens of thousands of sixth graders sit for the Selective Schools Examination in the hope of gaining enrolment in one of 23 government-funded selective schools. The successful students will spend their high school years being taught by excellent teachers in smaller classes with better facilities -- at almost negligible cost to their parents. A comparable education in a private school (such as Sydney Grammar School) can cost as much as $15,575 (US$8,255) per pupil per year.

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald disclosed that an influential group of Sydney Boys High School graduates is arguing for a change in government policy so that the sons and grandsons of former students may attend the school without sitting for the test or meeting the requirement that they live within the school's catchment area.

At first glance this appears to be a classic case of self interest, as former students seek an advantage for their sons and grandsons. In fact, such "sibling rights" had been allowed since the school's establishment in the 19th century but were abolished thirty years ago. Still, it seems almost inconceivable that anyone in democratic Australia could argue for a return to a system in which privileges are granted according to heredity rather than merit. There must be a compelling reason for such an argument to be mounted.

The answer is found in an article in the current issue of the old boys' magazine, which points out that:

The demographic of the school are [sic] fast evolving and year 7 is currently 90 per cent Asian...

Not surprisingly, this statement provoked an immediate charge of racism that, as it turns out, misses the point entirely.

With more than half its residents born overseas, Sydney is not just the most culturally diverse city in Australia, it is also a strongly Asian city. According to City Council statistics:

While this Asian influence is the main reason I enjoy living in Sydney, many older Australians -- particularly those outside the large cities -- do not share my delight. Some of them have never forgiven the Japanese for their treatment of Australian prisoners-of-war; others pine for the halcyon days when Australia was nothing more but an Antipodean outpost of British traditions and values.

But Sydney has absorbed the influx of Asian immigrants with minimal discord. So, even though many of the Sydney High old boys belong to that Anglophile generation, their desire for the reinstatement of "sibling rights" is motivated hardly at all by racism, partly by self-interest, and actually by something else entirely.

Just as everyone on Earth is connected to everyone else by no more than six degrees of separation, every single phenomenon in Australia -- social, political, cultural -- is never more than three degrees of separation from the most important influence in Australian life: sport. The City Council may suggest that "more than one-third of City of Sydney residents (35.1%) do not claim to belong to an organised religion" but that statistic fails to recognize that every Australian resident (native-born or immigrant) is compulsorily enrolled in the Church of Sport.

The full sentence in old boys's magazine article reads:

The demographic of the school are [sic] fast evolving and year 7 is currently 90 per cent Asian, which has the flow-on effect on the school's traditional sports of rowing, cricket and rugby.

Sydney Boys High is the only government school whose students compete in the GPS (Great Private Schools) sporting competition with seven (exclusive and expensive) private boys schools. It is hardly coincidental that rowing, cricket, and rugby are the favored sports of the British aristocracy and ruling class.

So the problem is not that 90 per cent of the current 7th grade students are Asian. It's that 90 percent of the current 7th grade students are, for the most part, slightly-built boys with physiques ill-suited for excelling in rowing, cricket, and rugby. Their skins could be purple and they could speak Mesopotamian for all the Sydney High old boys care -- if only Asian students were all six feet tall and weighed at least 85kg (190lb). Which they aren't and they don't.

The old boys' campaign hasn't a snowflake's chance in hell of succeeding. The Sydney Boys High principal, Dr Kim Jagger, has already been quoted as saying that "those seeking government intervention on sibling rights and geographic boundaries for selective schools were 'crying in the wilderness'." The Labor government in New South Wales is no more likely to grant the old boys' wish than it is to ban trade unions.

Instead of trying to prop up the last vestiges of the British influence in Australia by stacking Sydney Boys High with their dunderheaded sons and grandsons, the old boys should devote their energies to persuading the GPS to replace cricket with baseball and rugby with soccer. Then we'd all be better off.

4:34:45 PM  Permalink to this entry  comments ()  

© Copyright 2002 Jonathon Delacour