Campus Review Vol 30. Issue 05 | May 2020 | Seite 26

ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
What are
the options?
Advice to graduating high
school students from a VC.
By Nick Klomp
T
hink you’ve got it tough sitting at
home watching the news, rationing
toilet paper and worrying about
the future? Try being a current Queensland
Year 12 student.
If you are one of the state’s 50,000+
Year 12 students, you must feel like you’ve
24
been robbed. This was supposed to be
your year – arguably the most formative
year of your life, where you finally gained
your social, academic and economic
freedoms. But as it turns out, most social,
academic and economic freedoms have
been suspended until further notice.
This was meant to be the year of school
formals, driving your friends around with
your new driver’s licence, parties, sports
team trips, schoolies week, and getting
the guts to ask out your crush. How is any
of this meant to happen while you are in
lockdown with your parents?
This was meant to be the year where you
took a part-time job, earned a bit of coin,
and splashed some cash on festivals and
shoes. Now you’ve suddenly found yourself
locked out of those minimum-wage retail
and hospitality jobs, stuck at home, broke.
And this was going to be the biggest
academic year of your life so far. Huge.
We’re talking final-year exams, external
ATAR testing, university preferences, TAFE
applications, academic awards, school
captaincies and school leadership roles.
Right now you are probably wondering
how COVID-19 disrupts all of this, and
also why has the Class of 2020 been the
educational piñata year after year, taking
all the hits but not spilling any rewards
your way?
No, you are not imagining it. Throughout
your entire journey from prep to senior
high school you and your year have
been the subject of repeated academic
disruptions.
Back in 2008 you were the first full wave
of students to enter the compulsory prep
year – the guinea pigs for an education
system unfamiliar with the new concept.
Being the first year of the national
curriculum, you jumped straight to Year 5
mathematics (and other subjects) when
you were still in Year 4, with you and your
amazing teachers scrambling to catch up.