Class size discrepancy of DADA & Relative School SIze

[Steve]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...>
wrote:
> On 16 Jul 2004 at 21:48, Steve wrote:
> 
> > We have too small a window into size of individual class years,
> > but it's illogical to assume they are identical. 

> Shaun:
> 
> Not necessarily.
> 
> Personally I reconcile the discrepancies between the size of the 
> school in a somewhat similar way - ... for some reason ... it's not 
> operating at capacity. If I had to come up with a reason I'd say 
> it's because of a lack of available teachers.
> 
> But when dealing with a selective school (as Hogwarts seems to be) 
> it's not illogical by any means to assume identical or near 
> identical class sizes. It depends on the standards of selection - 
> but with a selective school where it's the only school serving a 
> particular population and there seems to be less places than there 
> are potential students, I'd expect it to have pretty similar, if 
> not identical, class sizes each year.
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Shaun Hately 

Asian_lovr2:

Here is were I'm coming from on the issue of class size. Hogwarts does
not choose students from the cream of the crop of the roughly 60
million citizens of the UK. They are choosing from a select group from
a small sub-culture. That creates a limited number of candidates.

If we work on your (I believe your's) permise that Hogwarts is the
premier University of Wizarding in the UK, and that only a very select
group of candidates are magical enough to get in, then we limit the
pool of candidates even more.

To save people the trouble of asking, based on my memory of that
premise, kids who don't make the grade are trained through various
home schooling, and apprenticeship programs. So they aren't completely
left out; the still get education and job opportunities. Just not the
same opportunities as those who go to Oxford, Chambridge, or Hogwarts.

My own personal take on alternate education is that there are-
-School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (equivalent to Universities;
actually only one in UK)
-Schools of Magic (equivalent to trade/techincal schools)

A regular muggle school that has a pool of millions with high demand
to get into these schools, where I suspect demand always exceeds
supply, can easily select enough students to fill their capacity. 

But Hogwarts doesn't have that luxury. If you simply don't have the
magical talent to get in, there is really no way to work harder to
make up for it in the way a muggle kid can study harder to make the
academic grade. 

In this sense, Hogwarts is more like a music or art school, as opposed
to a general education school. If you don't have the musical,
artistic, or magical talent, there is just no way you can work around
that in school.

So, things like low birth rates and a limited fluctuating pool of
qualfied candidates could easily make it difficult for Hogwarts to
meet capacity. 

Although, I do believe Hogwarts would take every available qualified
candidate, and expand the staff accordingly. Given Dumbledore's good
nature, he would not leave good candiates untrained because of a lack
of capacity or staff.

On the other hand, since Hogwarts seem financially sound, I don't
think they would lower their standards to meet capacity.

That's my take on the issue.

Steve/asian_lovr2