A bit of first hand knowledge on this.
The APS football program at most APS schools is run like a NAB league program. The school I am involved with has a very experienced junior coach who is still involved at NAB League and Vic Metro. He is supported by 2 assistants and a S&C coach who has bought in GPS trackers for the the top players. The whole program is run by an ex AFL legend who is the most passionate advocate of school football and has created the most amazing culture that most clubs could only dream of.
My school has 2 aims - win the APS shield and get kids in a position to go to their highest level - AFL, VFL etc..
Once the school footy season starts, all the NAB kids go play for school making the school games as good if not better than the NAB games as they are drawing on lower quality kids to fill the breach, kids who are unlikely to get drafted.
I was at 5 APS games this year and at each one there was a minimum of 10 recruiters there and one of them told me he ranks school over NAB.
My school had 15 kids on NAB lists.
Now the school and the NAB League teams are in regular communication so while there may be a bit of us and them, for the most part they work pretty well together.
I have second hand info from a friend on the AGS system and it is fairly similar. The ACC (Catholic) system which has St Bedes, De La Salle, Parade etc..is starting to catch up.
The state school system has nothing thus they are totally reliant on the NAB program.
So, don't be down on the APS / AGS / ACC programs. They do an amazing job and the kids who are in them absolutely love them.
Also, from Jake Niall's article last week, there is still this bias about it being rich kids footy who are all soft compared to the hard dudes from local high schools. This is complete crap. The standard of footy is huge and is as ferocious as any suburban league I have ever seen.