There are 17 fully selective public high schools in New South Wales, and on paper, they look like a public education success story: free, academically rigorous, and open to all.
Thousands of students sit the test each year for a shot at one of around 3,000 places. But here’s the truth: the system is broken – and everyone knows it.
Selective schools were designed to support academically gifted students, regardless of background.
Today, they overwhelmingly serve those who can afford years of tutoring and strategic planning – often at the expense of the very taxpayers who fund them.
More and more NSW families are waking up to the uncomfortable reality: these so-called public schools have become elite institutions in disguise, and unless you’re prepared to game the system, your child is locked out.
Parents that live in an area where there’s no decent comprehensive public high school are faced with a tough choice: either pay exorbitant private school fees or settle for a low-performing local public school. But wait – just around the corner is a top-performing public selective high school. Sounds perfect, right? Keep dreaming. Why? Because entry is based on a single high-stakes test that overwhelmingly favours students who have been intensively tutored – often for years – to master the format and beat the system. This is completely at odds with the original purpose of selective schools; to identify and nurture raw academic talent.
But wait, there’s more!
Many of the students filling those coveted places aren’t citizens – they’re permanent residents, many with fly-in, fly-out parents who strategically relocate to meet the enrollment criteria. Meanwhile, you – a citizen who’s been paying taxes for decades – and your child, who might have real potential, curiosity, and creative spark, don’t stand a chance. Not because your child isn’t capable, but because you haven’t been paying for tutoring since kindergarten.
Who would have thought letting your child play after school instead of killing their creativity with extra lessons would come back to bite you?
Now, you’re stuck. You’re funding, through your taxes, a supposedly public system of elite schools that your child has no access to. This is not an education system that rewards talent. It’s a system that rewards gamification and punishes the very families who are being forced to support it.
A system once run in good faith has been hijacked.
It’s time to face the uncomfortable truth: selective public schools in NSW no longer serve their intended purpose. They must be disbanded – or, at the very least, privatised.
Some may say that privatising selective schools sounds unfair – that it would shut out bright kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. But let’s be honest: that’s already the case. The intensive tutoring required to compete is completely out of reach for many lower-income families.
Just look at the numbers – selective schools now have some of the highest socio-economic profiles in the state and it’s not because rich kids are smarter.
So yes – stop using taxpayer money to subsidise elite public education for a select few, some of whom aren’t even citizens. Let’s stop pretending this is public education in any meaningful sense. If NSW is serious about education, then it’s time to rethink the model entirely. Instead of pouring public money into a handful of selective schools that disproportionately serve the well-resourced and overly-tutored, we should fund students, not institutions. That means shifting toward a system of school choice – one where funding follows the student, empowering families to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs, whether public, private, charter, or otherwise.
A charter-style model would open up new and innovative schooling options – and force all schools to compete on quality, not postcode or coaching culture. It’s a model built on fairness, flexibility, and accountability – exactly what the current system lacks!
