Nobody cares enough for my opinion but I'm gonna give it anyways:
Did they have good intentions making English compulsory? Yes! I think it's great, in theory. Exposing people to literature, whether they like it or not, is great for provoking thought. And there's something to be gained from it!
However, I feel like it gets lost in the implementation. We have English Extension 1 & 2 for all the literary stuff, and those subjects are fantastic at their job. Advanced and Standard sort of feel...lost. We have 3 essays, and they just feel like memorisation competitions. The reflection part of Module C is intended to provoke reflection on one's own writing, but it's just regurgitated.
In an ideal world, I think the best exam would be something like Paper 1 + a hand-in component. This way it tests one essay, your critical thinking ability in short answer, as well as your ability to craft a piece (discursive, creative, essay, anything) with substantial revision. However, in this age of AI, it makes sense that this wouldn't work anymore, which is a shame - I do feel like it's the best way to test people's genuine English ability. There are plenty of people out there I know who would significantly enjoy analysing or crafting texts that they enjoy. (This was part of the reason I wanted to do English Extension 2.)
I also do think it is odd they never teach us syntax, grammar and spelling. I have read people's creatives - people who have gotten near full marks - and yet their sentence structure is...lacking. I don't mean to be rude, but genuinely, it shocks me that in a subject called English, that this flies.
I personally think that English should be mandatory but not count to your ATAR. Universities may still look at it to ensure you bypass a certain threshold depending on the subject, but I don't like that its existence punishes people who are better at other subjects, even if they're still good at English. I don't ascribe to the HSIE vs STEM debate, but it's a shame if someone getting >95 (for example) in every subject is pulled down by a 90 in English. Clearly this student is very capable, but their ATAR will not reflect their true capability.
I also agree math should be compulsory, to some extent. Genuinely, some of the things I've seen are embarrassing. I'll cite a story I heard recently: in America, they released a limited-edition burger called the Half-Pounder - double the size and double the price of a Quarter-Pounder. People complained that they were paying more for a smaller burger, because they thought 1/2 was smaller than 1/4. I think this is proof enough that people need some compulsory math.
