Education

 Primary and Secondary: 

The NSW school system comprises a kindergarten to year twelve system with primary schooling up to year 6 and secondary schooling between year 7 and 12. Schooling is compulsory until age 15.[12]

Primary and secondary schools include government and non-government schools. Government schools are further classified as comprehensive and selective schools. Non-government schools include Catholic schools, other denominational schools, and non-denominational independent schools.

Typically, a primary school provides education from kindergarten level to year 6. A secondary school, usually called a “high school”, provides education from years 7 to 12. Secondary colleges are secondary schools which only cater for years 11 and 12.

The government classifies the 12 years of primary and secondary schooling into six stages, beginning with stage 1 (years 1 and 2) and ending with stage 6 (years 11 and 12).

School Certificate: 

The School Certificate is awarded by the Board of Studies to students at the end of Year 10. Typically, students in secondary schools will have completed a course of study in accordance with the Board’s requirements, and sit for the tests at the end of year 10.

The Board administers five external tests in English-literacy, Mathematics, Science, Australian History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship. Students are not given a “pass” or “fail” result. The tests are designed to grade a student on their ability. The results of this test are categorised into bands 1 through to 6 with band 1 as the lowest and band 6 as the highest.[13]

Higher School Certificate: 

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is the usual Year 12 leaving certificate in NSW. Most students complete the HSC prior to entering the workforce or going on to study at college, university or TAFE (although the HSC itself can be completed at TAFE). The HSC must be completed for a student to get a University Admissions Index, which determines the students rank against fellow students who completed the Higher School Certificate.

Tertiary: 

Eleven universities primarily operate in New South Wales. Sydney is home to Australia’s first university, the University of Sydney, founded in 1850, as well as the University of New South Wales, Macquarie University, the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Western Sydney. The Australian Catholic University has two of its six campuses in Sydney, and the private University of Notre Dame Australia also operates a secondary campus in the city.

Outside Sydney, the leading universities are the University of Newcastle and the University of Wollongong. Armidale is home to the University of New England, and Charles Sturt University and Southern Cross University have campuses spread across cities in the state’s south-west and north coast respectively.

The public universities are state government agencies, however they are largely regulated by the federal government, which also administers their public funding. Admission to NSW universities is arranged together with universities in the Australian Capital Territory by another government agency, the Universities Admission Centre.

Primarily vocational training is provided up the level of advanced diplomas is provided by the state government’s ten Technical and Further Education

(TAFE) institutes. These institutes run courses in over 130 campuses throughout the state

Geography

New South Wales is bordered on the north by Queensland, on the west by South Australia, on the south by Victoria and on the east by the Tasman Sea. The Australian Capital Territory and the Jervis Bay Territory are Federal enclaves of New South Wales.

The state can be divided geographically into four areas. New South Wales’ three largest cities, Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, lie near the centre of a narrow coastal strip extending from cool temperate areas on the far south coast to subtropical areas near the Queensland border. The Illawarra region is centred on the city of Wollongong, with the Shoalhaven, Eurobodalla and the Sapphire Coast to the south. The Central Coast lies between Sydney and Newcastle, with the North Coast and Northern Rivers regions reaching northwards to the Queensland border. Tourism is important to the economies of coastal towns such as Coffs Harbour, Lismore, Nowra and Port Macquarie, but the region also produces seafood, beef, dairy, fruit, sugar cane and timber.

The Great Dividing Range extends from Victoria in the south through New South Wales to Queensland, parallel to the narrow coastal plain. This area cludes the Snowy Mountains, the Northern, Central and Southern Tablelands, the Southern Highlands and the South West Slopes. Whilst not particularly steep, many peaks of the range rise above 1,000 metres (3,280 ft), with the highest Mount Kosciuszko at 2,229 metres (7,308 ft). The relatively short ski season underwrites the tourist industry in the Snowy Mountains. Agriculture, particularly the wool industry, is important throughout the highlands. Major centres include Armidale, Bathurst, Bowral, Goulburn, Inverell, Orange, Queanbeyan and Tamworth.

The western slopes fill a significant portion of the state’s area and have a much sparser population than areas nearer the coast. Agriculture is the central to the economy of the western slopes, particularly the Riverina region and Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in the state’s south-west. Towns such as Albury, Dubbo, Griffith, Leeton and Wagga Wagga exist primarily to service these agricultural regions. The western slopes decend slowly to the western plains that comprise almost two-thirds of the state and are largely arid or semi-arid. The mining town of Broken Hill is the largest centre in this area.[14]

The highest maximum temperature recorded was 50.0 °C (122.0 °F) at Wilcannia in the state’s west on 11 January 1939. The lowest minimum temperature was -23.0 °C (-9.4 °F) at Charlotte Pass on 29 June 1994 in the Snowy Mountains. This is also the lowest temperature recorded in whole of Australia excluding the Antarctic Territory.[15]

One possible definition of the centre for New South Wales is located 33km west-north-west of Tottenham.[16]