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Teacher Sia Goutzas wanted to send her three girls to a co-ed school. Single-sex education may have made sense, she says, when men became workers and women wives, but those days are over.
“It’s insane that we are still segregating genders,” she says. “I don’t know why we can’t send girls to Sydney Grammar, or boys to St Catherine’s. For me it should be a natural part of schooling,” Goutzas says.
But in the part of the eastern suburbs where Goutzas lives, there are few co-ed options; even the public schools are single sex. So, in the end, her daughters went to a Catholic girls’ school.
Lead from the front: The year 12 students who want to make an impact
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Roaa Ahmed is 18, but she’s no stranger to protesting for change. At just 10 years old, she took to the streets with thousands during the Egyptian revolution. Soon after authorities came banging on the door to arrest her teenage brother. “We were that type of family where we go and protest; we don’t keep silent,” she says.
The family fled Egypt and arrived in Australia in 2018 where Roaa found herself seeking advice from strangers on the streets of Bankstown. They pointed her to the local library and intensive English centre, which quickly changed her life. Two years later she is fluent in English, scoring top marks and preparing for her HSC at Beverly Hills Girls’ High School, where she is also on the student representative council.