NSW education and my "why" with Sydney Science College...
Introduction
I know it's been a while since my last post. Several people have given me feedback behind the scenes. Most of the feedback has been positive. Most wanted me to expand on some of the observations I had given in my prior post, I had made some points about the current pain points in the Australian education system.
I've personally had some further preliminary high level observations and solutions. Again, I come from the attitude towards this system as a humble outsider. Like most things in life, what remains constant is there are always pros and cons to every sort of "system" we come across.
I suppose the goal however is to balance and ensure there are more pros than cons, which come from thoughtful and inclusive decision making based on first principles.
Apologies if the below is more of a rambling type post again. Most people who know me, know I generally like to accumulate my thoughts in a OneNote, and then I usually try to convert it into some digestible blog post for this website.
What does education mean to me? It's simpler than you think...
Education is basically downloading data and algorithms into your brain. You experience problems every day (input). You then process (function) the input (using the algorithms you have developed over time in your learning). You for lack of a better word, from your process, spit out an answer (output) to the problem.
Education is about helping you efficiently and effectively nurture the function component of your brain, so that you get dealt inputs, and spit out outputs.
With that in mind, what are the current education system's areas of gross inefficiencies and ineffectiveness that are a detriment to students?
Preliminary observations in the NSW education system of Australia
Some further preliminary observations I have made being exposed to tutoring a student in the current NSW public education system, and observing the building of Sydney Science College, Sydney's 1st STEM focused private high school...
Federal Aus Govt budget spend of ~$70B per annum to schools seems inefficient, and that has doubled already when you compare to 5-10 years ago
Supply of teachers is very tight and becoming a greater issue every passing year, as student numbers rise but teacher numbers fall
Teachers resigning at an alarming rate, with 50% of teachers in Australia leaving their profession within the first 5 years
The big gap between so-called "privileged" schools vs marginalised schools
Education in Aust by world standards is below average on lots of different metrics, when it comes to English, Science and Maths
The standard of quality in teachers is highly variable, lacking consistency
Not enough respect is shown to teachers, when you compare to Asian countries like Singapore, Japan, and South Korea for example
Class times seem longer than they need to be, and you can say the same thing for those Asian examples above
Students are forced into subjects and topics they often have no interest in, which I believe does more harm than good in the long run
Students generally do not have enough exposure to the reality of the world around them, at a time when fundamentals matter more
Number of students graduating with year 12 HSC successful it not showing improvement
Teachers are overworked and a lot of this is due to admin work that has nothing to do with what they are good at, i.e. teaching students
The emphasis on mentors is not stressed enough for students
Most students I know find the rigid system of taking notes off a board, memorising the notes, practising off Qs from your notes, doing a test, then repeating the process 4 terms a year for the next goodness knows 10+ years of your life...
Ask 100 students why they're learning maths, or English, or science, or any subject in the education system, and I'll bet 95+ don't know why, except to say blatantly "it's what I have to do" (we have lost sight of the "relevance" for education...)
Chemistry and physics appear to be losing traction when it comes to importance in the HSC based on HSC enrolments (see below from 2010-20) - clear indicator of us veering away from the future we were destined for
Two preliminary solutions for the NSW education system of Australia
Whilst I don't claim to have all the answers (anybody who says they are should be looked at sceptically...), and I imagine it is never easy to enact change in an incumbent industry, these are some preliminary solutions that have stuck in my mind currently. These are all just my personal thoughts...
(1) Schools have for centuries been stuck in pen and paper in a world that is increasingly proving pen and paper to be obsolete.
I have nothing against pen and paper and I expect to get lots of back lash saying this, but I firmly believe the majority of students in the next 50 years will not even know what pen and paper is. Saying this as an investor myself, provides a more sensible way of looking at education. Looking at the rear view mirror is generally pointless as a student. As a student, you should be looking out the front window.
You are not educating yourself for the past. You are educating yourself for the future.
In fact, I used to be one of those guys who for a long time, used to encourage younger students to increase their writing speed by attaching a battery to a pen in the hopes of writing faster in HSC English exams. Let's face it... I'd argue for the large majority of students (let's call it 95%+), that skill is irrelevant once they're in their careers. We need to stop obsessing over our writing speed with pages and pages in an English exam. This would require a re-think entirely in what we are trying to examine in the English exams we set. What are we really trying to assess in English? I think we've lost sight of the fact that English is a language, and we have languages to communicate with each other.
I'm not here to say that pen and paper is useless. I'm merely proposing that the reality of where we are headed, is one where the old fashioned pen and paper skills are irrelevant when it comes to assessments. Online exams are not crazy at all. They will be normal when you look decades out in the future. For example, the CFA Institute (which is a series of exams that financial analysts like myself are taking) is moving all their exams online from 2021.
Dropping pen and paper is being adopted in professional institutes, and I think it is time for the NSW education system to catch up in that regard, otherwise students used to doing pen and paper exams in high school, will have a shock when they realise the professional institutes are assessing you online without pen and paper. These professional institutes are a leading indicator for the school systems on how to assess their students.
(2) Establishing relevance through real world problem solving to remove cognitive dissonance, needs a greater emphasis.
This is one idea I've thought about that I came across from Elon Musk when he started his own school for his kids in his SpaceX company, called Ad Astra (my sister pointed out the name has now changed to Astra Nova).
The idea behind the school was about teaching to the problem, rather than the tools to the problem. I always liked Elon's example of dealing with the problem of how to make a car engine more efficiently and effectively. You take apart the car engine, breaking it down into its relevant components (this is first principles way of thinking), and then observing the different tools required to put the car engine together again better. Along the way, you learn why you needed a wrench when re-building a car engine. That's likely a better lesson on why we use wrenches and why they're relevant, than simply having a class and taking notes on wrenches. But hopefully, the students learn to find other tools they can use to rebuild the car engine that is more effective and efficient.
Something funky you also get when you teach to the tools, rather than the problem, is you get students armed with the same tool kit, and it means 95% of the time, you'll get the same answer to the problem. But can there be a better answer if you had a different tool kit?
I think the issues in the current NSW education system, is that over the decades, there seems to have been an obsession with quantity rather than quality. This meant that the HSC syllabus in a lot of cases, became crammed with different topics of study, many of which were not actually relevant. I firmly believe simplifying the syllabus into less topics, but focusing the resources on real world problem solving in many cases, can improve relevance to students.
A good way of instituting problem solving is through "game-ifying" the education process. Whilst the perception towards games is that they're unproductive, violent inducing, and socially disconnecting, I would argue it simply depends on the games produced. If the tutoring industry in Australia is $1-2B per year, then I'd argue the educational game development industry is worth at least $1-2B, because the value add of learning is similar if brought to reality.
This is a good incentive for game developers to think about how they could benefit the education sector. Whilst unorthodox in many ways, I would encourage everybody to take the idea of "game-ifying" education as possibly a better way of learning than the current rigid system we have.
We need to make education fun again through real world problems, and the relevance and "why" will follow.
In many cases, "why" we are solving these real world problems is to make the world a better place, and I think schools need to remember this, and not lose sight of the forrest from the trees.
Conclusion and a shameless refresher about why I am personally invested in Sydney Science College (SSC)...
Whilst I don't admit these are easy changes, I believe there should be more discussion in these 2 areas within the NSW education system leadership boards. I don't see any clear and realistic strategy so far on their website to suggest they are rethinking their ways of assessing students with perhaps less pen and paper, nor their syllabus to suit problem solving and establish greater relevance for students.
In a lot of ways, seeing these problems in the current NSW education system, have convinced me something needs to be done. I fully support Joey and Shaun (the principals of Sydney Science College) in their endeavour of building Sydney's first STEM focused private high school.
Frankly in my view, the public system has proven inefficient and ineffective on the most part, and hence the private system appears the only way to enact change at a point in Australian history now more than ever when the world is changing so rapidly, and innovation cycles are taking off at escape velocity in areas like DNA sequencing, energy storage, robotics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain (the 5 innovation platforms which an investor, Cathy Wood, talks a lot about happening in the 21st century).
Keeping pace with this change in the world is becoming increasingly challenging, and our current education system will not be beneficiaries of these cycles if we're not ready.
Human intelligence has probably in the last 5 decades been flat to slightly up, whilst machine intelligence has grown exponentially in the order of trillions in magnitude...
I believe Sydney Science College is having a good crack at addressing a lot of the problems I have observed in the NSW education system. I don't think any existing school can resolve these problems, because of how deeply ingrained over time they have become over the decades and with their legacy staff agendas.
This means, the only way to resolve a lot of these problems is to re-architect the idea of a "school" from the ground up. From the very philosophy of what education is, to the teachers being hired, and building a school environment that is focused on problem solving for teaching relevance and embracing different technology forms for communicating beyond pen and paper because we realise old methods of form are outdated.
Anybody interested in having their student experience a completely re-thought way of education should contact the team at SSC! They're taking students in years 11-12 for 2021, and if I could go back to year 10, I'd be applying in a heart beat!
It has been a slow, but quietly pleasing progress and I'm thankful in the entire SSC team's dedication to launching hopefully in 2021, and leading by example, a way to rethink the entire NSW education system.
One step at a time.
Have a great long weekend (Labour Day in NSW!) and stay safe everybody during this pandemic,
Michael Li
Disclaimer: I have a financial interest in SSC, so I am obviously biased in a lot of my views against the current education system in NSW, Australia. However, I encourage others to question my logic and think for themselves about whether this should be a greater topic of discussion regardless whether you agree or disagree with my views.
