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Why do South Aussies care what school you went to?

Ian HenschkeThe Advertiser


Australian families spend $10 billion a year sending their offspring to private schools.

We’ve the highest rate of private education in the OECD. Four out of every 10 secondary students now attend non-government schools. A survey of 1600 SA parents released this week found they allocate up to 40 per cent of their net income to fees.

And what is it about Adelaide and where you went to school? We seem obsessed with it. It’s often worked into conversations when you first meet someone. I doubt other cities do it. But dare to be critical of the private school network and it will come back to bite you. So in this article I’ve changed the names of some people and schools to protect their identity.

Let’s say I went to an unnamed college from 1962 to 1972.

For anonymity’s sake we could call it Sendembroke, or perhaps Saint Obnoxious. Because it was Catholic, not too expensive and the experience wasn’t pleasant, let’s call it Saint Obnoxious.

This obsession about where you went to school came up twice in the last month.

An old friend, let’s call him Jack, came back to Adelaide to play with a rock band. He’d had huge hits with them in the 1980s. His family was musical and, despite his schooling, Jack achieved great success after heading east in his late teens.

He did some publicity ahead of the big homecoming gig and I rang him to see how it went. “What is it with Adelaide and the school you went to?” Jack exclaimed in exasperation.

He said he felt like he couldn’t escape his school days. I told him I’d just had the same problem.

I was phoned by a staff member from this magazine. They said someone wanted my contact details. They were compiling a list of old scholars for publicity and marketing. For full disclosure they should also put out a list of those former staff with police records.

One still has seven years to serve for child sex abuse. The same sadly could be said for dozens more schools. The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse heard from almost 2500 survivors who’d suffered in an institution managed by the Catholic Church.

My parents were devout Catholics and forked out a fortune in fees for four boys over more than 20 years. My eldest brother had, what we call today, a learning disorder, probably related to undiagnosed autism. He went to a different school than mine where he was bullied, beaten and belittled, and that was just by the religious brothers. He left as soon as he could, and started work at 14.

At my old school some students were sexually abused, but almost all suffered physical abuse, and it was relentless.

The sociopathic priests were the worst. An instrument of pain was concealed inside their black robes.

It was a thick, heavy, leather strap especially crafted by a bootmaker. We called it the “bomb” because of the sound it made when it slammed down on young puffy outstretched palms. It sometimes burst blood vessels in wrists when the perpetrator overreached.


Famous alumni: SA public schools’ best and brightest

Famous alumni: SA private schools’ best and brightest

I now live in my late parents’ home.

They kept all my school’s year books. I looked up 1972. My matriculation results were there for all to see, along with 57 classmates’ marks from the two year 12 classes. I got B C D E F with a big F next to my name for fail. I wasn’t alone; 26 others failed. With a success rate like that, one can only wonder how bad it was, not just for me, but for the rest who had F next to their name.

I’ve often wondered how my life would have been if I had gone to a state school. Julia Gillard, who created the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse that saw a string of charges against private schools exposed, and became our first female Prime Minister, went to a state school. The most successful and popular Labor PM, Bob Hawke, went to a public school. He was a Rhodes Scholar and had a brilliant career winning four elections in a row.

John Howard had a public education and also won four straight elections.

Scott Morrison, who some say had enough of the Hawke and Howard connection with average Australia to get him over the line at the last election, went to his local high school.

But Bill Shorten, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, who all struggled in sustaining any sort of warmth with the electorate, all went to private schools. I won’t name them but I’m sure the schools do in their marketing.

Needless to say, I chose not to be on Saint Obnoxious’s old scholars marketing roll of honour.