Racial discrimination in HSC language courses (1 Viewer)

[financialwar]

Why does only Asian languages have heritage and background courses?

A children born in China and study there until say year 6, comes to Australia and if he wants to do Chinese in HSC, he must do the harder 2U background course. If a child born in Germany and study there for the same amount of time, can do German continuer and extension for a total of 3 units at a much easier level.

Why is that? Does not sound fair to me.

 

[simplyinsanity]

I don't think that's racial discrimination. There's probably just a lot more background Chinese speakers than background German speakers.

 

[financialwar]

the system should not disadvantage a certain group of race because there are more people in that race. Plus your reasoning is not valid, the German and Chinese was just example, another example is that there are a lot of more Italians than Japanese in NSW, there are a lot of Europeans nationalities than Japanese in NSW, yet only Asian languages have background and heritage and none of the European languages have it.

Can I make a complaint to the federal court, this is a clear violation of our constitution.

 

[madharris]

Can I make a complaint to the federal court, this is a clear violation of our constitution.

This will cost you lots of time and money (in the thousands)
It's not worth it

 

[financialwar]

I don't you're getting my point.

We students, same intelligence, same dedication, one is of Japanese background and one is of German background, both are equally fluent in their mother tongue and English.

The Japanese will be forced to do background Japanese for just two units, the German student can do continuer and extension for three units.

The background course will be harder than the 3U German course.

The German student will virtually destroy the 3 units of German course which the Japanese have to student for the 2U background course plus another one unit course to get a total of 3 units.

If same of time and effort were used to study by both students, the German students will be able to invest more of his time to other 7 units, while the Japanese students have less time to for his other 8 units.

This would give the German student the ultimate advantage over the Japanese student.

 

[financialwar]

Well two issues.

1. Why should Asian background student be disadvantaged by the system if he/she wants to do his/her mother tongue in the HSC.

2. Why should European/Arabic background students get 3 units of credit for basically free?

 

[financialwar]

Any ways I'll first lodge a complaint with the Anti-discrimination board, see if they will does with the issue. If not, I'll probably start a class action with the Asian community at the federal level see if we can rid of Asian heritage and background courses or apply heritage and background course to all languages.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Frankly, this is pretty much the same question as "Why is Advanced/Standard English compulsory when some students could be disadvantaged by having no interest for the subject or having English as their second language?"

And my answer is: I do not know the answer. The Board of Studies probably does, but I am not the Board of Studies.



With that said, I wish you the best for this endeavour.

We must do English because we are in Australia, where it's the national language...,

Why would you learn jibberish when it isn't what the main Population speaks.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Even that answer is not really valid. In Advanced/Standard English, you do not learn English as a language. You learn how to analyse texts, write essays and creative responses. It has very little to do with English as a language. With that said, I did like my English units during high school, but I was not under the illusion that I was actually learning anything remotely got to do with punctuation, grammar, etcetera.

We learnt that in primary school.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Yes, I am aware. But I do not see the relevancy of your point. I was talking about Advanced/Standard English, not primary English. And you also seem to assume that automatically everyone would have been able to sufficiently learn English in primary school, or have been in Australia while going to primary school. I feel like you have just missed my point altogether? :S

Oh right!

I have missed your point.

I think the board is just trying to cater for more people , well... You can't cater for natural and non natural English speakers at the same time.

 

[panda15]

Since when has the HSC ever been fair? I don't think it's worth the fight dude...

 

[financialwar]

Since when has the HSC ever been fair? I don't think it's worth the fight dude...

Although HSC/ATAR is less blunt than American college selection system where universities would openly take other races over Asians with higher SAT and GPA for the sake of "cultural diversity" and "equal opportunity". I still feel the system is designed to disadvantage Asian background speakers. How many Asian background students could have gotten a higher ATAR over the years if the system was actually equal.

I used to think Western world is built on democracy and meritocracy, where all races are treated equally.

 

[nerdasdasd]

Although HSC/ATAR is less blunt than American college selection system where universities would openly take other races over Asians with higher SAT and GPA for the sake of "cultural diversity" and "equal opportunity". I still feel the system is designed to disadvantage Asian background speakers. How many Asian background students could have gotten a higher ATAR over the years if the system was actually equal.

I used to think Western world is built on democracy and meritocracy, where all races are treated equally.

You're making a fuss over nothing, drop it and just focus on yourself....

Life is never fair, and until you accept that, you will be be content.

Case closed,

 

[Soulful]

You're making a fuss over nothing, drop it and just focus on yourself....

Life is never fair, and until you accept that, you will be be content.

Case closed,

Hey, no need to be so dismissive and condescending!

To OP, I always did find it strange that basically only Asian languages have a background speaker/heritage component, but I guess you do have to look at it from another perspective. It really isn't fair for someone with a non Asian background to compete with someone who has undertaken half their schooling over there, and you're right that this should apply for all languages. However, if the board really did introduce "French Background Speakers", virtually no one would take it because there aren't many students who'd be eligible for it. On the other hand, there are huge numbers of Chinese-background kids doing the HSC and the variety of their ability means that it would be impossible for them all to take ONE standardized test, thus the BS/H courses. Since, things have gotten so much better after they introduced heritage, because there used to be such an unrepresented gray area between Continuers and Background Speakers.

In any case, the only real "racism" in HSC language is probably in the Japanese course, where the BOS have significantly cut down the amount of Chinese characters you have to learn (from 500 to 250 my Japanese teacher tells me) to stop "disadvantaging" non-Chinese background students.

 

[Soulful]

Wait, isn't financialwar the same troll who said they were thinking of getting their sister to do the HSC at age 9?

Hahaha, probably! But ironically, he raises a very interesting question with some pretty valid points.

 

[Thief]

In any case, the only real "racism" in HSC language is probably in the Japanese course, where the BOS have significantly cut down the amount of Chinese characters you have to learn (from 500 to 250 my Japanese teacher tells me) to stop "disadvantaging" non-Chinese background students.

What makes it racist?

 

[kaz1]

It would discourage Australian raised kids to undertake an Asian language because they won't be able to compete with the fobs if they just had continuers and the government wants more Australians to do Asian languages because of the "Asian century".

With the European languages they are along with English in the Indo-European language group so there are a lot of similarities between the languages and Aussie kids wouldn't really be disadvantage.

tl;dr if you want to dominate chinese pick on someone your own size

 

[Soulful]

What makes it racist?

I wasn't really being serious.

But the Japanese course has definitely been dumbed down so it would be less of a pain for non-Chinese students.

 

[Squar3root]

maybe make a complaint here: http://www.antidiscrimination.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/adb/adb1_makingacomplaint.html,c=y before taking it to a federal level. also i don't think a federal level would be appropriate as education falls under residual power which is a state thing. maybe pursue it in the supreme court?

This will cost you lots of time and money (in the thousands)
It's not worth it

not if you win

 

[Squar3root]

also, why would you want to do Asian unless if you're not fluent in it. it would be a stupid idea for me to do german or asian but reasonable for me to do hindi? i don't really see how it is unfair? (OP, could you clarify this for me)

I don't you're getting my point.

We students, same intelligence, same dedication, one is of Japanese background and one is of German background, both are equally fluent in their mother tongue and English.

The Japanese will be forced to do background Japanese for just two units, the German student can do continuer and extension for three units.

The background course will be harder than the 3U German course.

The German student will virtually destroy the 3 units of German course which the Japanese have to student for the 2U background course plus another one unit course to get a total of 3 units.

If same of time and effort were used to study by both students, the German students will be able to invest more of his time to other 7 units, while the Japanese students have less time to for his other 8 units.

This would give the German student the ultimate advantage over the Japanese student.

wouldn't marks and stuff be scaled so it doesn't matter in the end? lol