A Select Entry Accelerated Learning (SEAL) program is a form of streaming used in government secondary schools in Victoria, Australia to provide a focused educational environment for academically gifted children.
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The program allows students to undertake Year 8 work in Year 7, and the option to complete their secondary education in five years instead of six, or students can choose to undertake a more comprehensive Victorian Certificate of Education that takes three years instead of two.
Victoria currently has four government secondary schools which are entirely selective entry: Melbourne High School, Mac.Robertson Girls' High School, Nossal High School and Suzanne Cory High School, plus five selective schools: John Monash Science School (which has a science focus), Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (which specialises in dance, music and visual arts), Maribyrnong Secondary College (with specialist sport programs), the Flying Fruit Fly Circus School, and The Alpine School (an intensive leadership and enterprise program for year 9).
Controversies
As a form of streaming, SEAL programs by their very nature attract criticism from those committed to the principles of comprehensive education. Additionally, because they are not offered by every school, the schools that run them are argued to take away the top students from schools that don't, thus leading to a pool of less diverse schools and a concentration of bright students in a small number of schools.
Schools with SEAL programs
Secondary schools in Victoria offering SEAL programs: