Australia’s school system is no longer just broken — it’s actively working against the very values that once built our nation.

In this second instalment of The Finance Bible’s cultural reality check series, Zeke Guenthroth is joined by youth mentor Curtis Piper to deliver one of the hardest-hitting education critiques you’ll hear anywhere. This isn’t a surface-level chat about schooling — it’s a full-body audit of the mental, moral, and academic collapse of the Australian education system.

We’re not here for sugar-coated solutions or woke buzzwords. We’re here to confront the truth — backed by statistics, lived experience, and honest conversation.

🎯 In This Episode:

📉 Academic Decline

• The shift from linear to non-linear learning
• How Outcome-Based Education (OBE) derailed standards
• The quiet removal of exams and plummeting NAPLAN/PISA scores
• Public vs private school gaps in literacy, behaviour and suspensions

🧠 Mental Fragility & Cultural Confusion

• 38% surge in antidepressant use across the past decade
• Over 4 million Australians on prescriptions
• Why schools no longer build resilience or mental toughness
• Identity confusion, self-diagnosis culture, and validation over truth

👨‍🏫 The Collapse of Discipline & Role Modelling

• 85% of youth detainees come from fatherless homes
• Boys are now years behind girls in reading and writing
• Male teacher shortage and its effect on boyhood and authority
• How structure, challenge, and boundaries were replaced with fragility

📚 Indoctrination Over Education

• Pronoun politics and identity-based teaching priorities
• The censorship of critical thinking
• Why financial literacy, masculinity, and strength are missing
• The role of schools in enforcing rather than educating

🌍 Global Comparisons

• How Australia stacks up to Singapore, Finland, and Japan
• What these nations do differently in discipline, standards, and curriculum
• What happens when Australia prioritises ideology over evidence

💥 Key Stats:

• 75% of suicides are men – it’s the leading cause of death for Aussie males under 45
• Antidepressant use up 38% in a decade — 1 in 6 adults now medicated
• Boys’ literacy performance now trails girls by nearly a full school year
• Suspensions have doubled in public schools over the past 10 years
• OBE introduced across states like WA in the early 2000s; largely failed and dismantled, but its principles remain

This episode is your wake-up call.

It’s not just about depression, discipline, or academic decline. It’s about

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