Reports have it that the NSW state government is so worried people are gaming the ATAR to get out of studying advanced maths it asked agencies to investigate, including the Universities Admissions Centre. This struck CMM as strange given UAC is adamant the ATAR can’t be gamed, (CMM May 3).

But it turns out the NSW Education Standards Authority is changing maths courses for 2019-200. This UAC’s Kim Paino says “may give us slightly different data about the performance of maths students so we will be looking at that to see whether it is useful in terms of (the) ATAR and whether to make changes to the calculation.”

“It’s not being done because we think there is a problem with the current calculation but at the same time we’re aware that there are students that have been – unwisely – choosing the lower level maths so we are keen to look at anything we can do to help improve that, whether it’s in education/communication or now perhaps also in an adjustment to the calculation,” Ms Paino adds.