Bolt Blunders Again
Iain Lygo
5 April 2004

Andrew Bolt's recent piece, Muslim trouble brewing, again demonstrates the Herald Sun columnist will grab any 'evidence' to attack Australian Muslims. Surely it is time Blunders pulled Bolt into line for his disgracefully shallow and dangerous brand of journalism.

Bolt attacks the King Khalid Islamic College in Coburg because, "for two years (it has) not recorded one VCE result of at least 40 out of 50."

He then claims, "I know the excuses. These are children from poorer families struggling to cope with living in an alien society, or coming from cultures that don't teach habits of success for a country such as ours."

No Andrew, the real reason why the King Khalid Islamic College hasn't had outstanding VCE results is because the school pushes its better pupils (25-50% of senior year students) into the more academically challenging International Baccalaureate Diploma program. This program is recognised by the world's finest universities while the VCE often isn't.

Bolt's evidence is meaningless because King Khalid's most advanced students are excluded from the VCE results the Herald Sun columnist sites.

Andrew, surely you also know the IB organisation only allows the best schools to run their program, e.g. Geelong Grammar, Wesley College and PLC.

So how does King Khalid's results stand up? Lets look at their ENTER scores. In 2002, 50% of their IB students achieved above 90 and two students achieved more than 99 (99.65 and 99.25). In 2001, 43% achieved more than 90, and in 2000, 53% did so and our top student achieved 99.20.

Unlike Bolt's columns, the King Khalid Islamic College can hardly be accused of being an intellectual wasteland.

Bolt argues, "It's asking for trouble to have one group in a multi-ethnic community producing children without the schooling to get ahead." Gee Andrew, why did The Age report that every one of the school's 2001 graduates went on to tertiary education institutions. See: Uncovering the covered.

What about producing well rounded people with a social conscious? All of King Khalid's students are required to undertake community service work before starting their senior years. They also blitzed the Port of Melbourne art competition. See: Art competition .

Bolt then argues "That we produce resentful youths, incapable of getting decent jobs or even any work at all, for such firebrands to preach (anti-democratic and anti-capitalism sentiment) ... just spells strife." Does Bolt's generalisation stand up to any scrutiny? Well it seems the King Khalid School has an outstanding record in producing academically advanced students who are currently studying Science and Technology, Medicine, Engineering, Law, Economics, Business and a number of Humanities and Social Science courses at universities throughout the world. What about Bolt's capitalism argument? Which school took out third place in the ASX virtual investing game last year? That's right King Khalid. Bummer Andrew. See: ASX winners announced.

Bolt's final piece of wisdom in this article argues "No wonder we're seeing the rise of so many ethnic youth gangs in our cities. That should be warning enough for our education bureaucrats to get cracking."

Perhaps those bureaucrats could study King Khalid's programs that are producing excellent results. Mr Bolt may even want to visit the school so he could become a little better informed.

He could even learn some basic research methods. Like getting on the phone and ringing the school to discuss their IB program. He may also learn that recently their Year 7 girls were racially vilified while visiting the Broadmeadows library. Perhaps he could write a column about that nasty episode?

On the other hand he would probably hate it at King Khalid Islam College. They participate in all those horrible multicultural events that encourage peace and tolerance, such as Harmony Day.

Iain Lygo is the author of News Overboard: The Tabloid Media, Race Politics and Islam.
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