As another ATAR brawl brews ANU avoids it altogether
The Australian National University will admit 2020 UGs on the basis of their Year 11 results, VC Brian Schmidt announces. Applications are open from Easter until May, with successful students advised in August.
“Now all Year 12 students who want to study at ANU can focus on completing their studies and preparing for university, knowing that if their marks from Year 11 meet our entry requirements they can join one of the world’s leading universities,” Professor Schmidt says.
Unhappily for any aspiring law student who thought they saw a loophole, Y11 based offers only apply if students complete Y12.
The Vice Chancellor adds ANU’s new entry scheme allowed it to predict students’ 2019 HSC results on the basis of Year 11 performance. The university moved to a new admissions model in 2018 (CMM May 30 2018).
Meanwhile it’s the same old, same old about the ATAR
The disruption to Y12 has ATAR supporters and critics arguing-up. The ranking-system life-guards at the (NSW) Universities Admissions Centre were yesterday making the best of state and federal ministers not uniting on 2021 unit entry but at least accepting there will be an ATAR. “‘These are no doubt challenging times, but it’s clear that governments and universities across the country are united in their commitment to helping students through Year 12 and onto university.”
But the existing ATAR may not be fit for virus-times. The possibility of COVID-19 kicking on alarms Janet Dutton (Macquarie U), “It creates further uncertainty in an ATAR already beset by uneven student access to resources, time and technology. A move to school-based assessment ATAR would deliver certainty to Year 12 students, teachers and parents and today’s failure to do so is a missed opportunity to address the genuine stressors impacting Year 12 2020.”
Kim Wilson (also Macquarie U) suggests a solution; “take-home assessment tasks are usual practice in any HSC internal assessment program. … Across the state, secondary school HSC teachers have the existing skills, expertise and commitment to ensure that student’s work is assessed against the standards with rigour and validity.” “This is the time to acknowledge and validate teacher professional judgement.”
The Innovative Research Universities group presented an informed balance yesterday. On the one hand; “each state and territory has its distinct way to assess Year 11 and Year 12 schoolwork. There is no one right way. This gives a lot of scope to put in place assessments suited to the COVID-19 circumstances. We will learn that the precision of highly wrought systems is not necessary to achieving the key task, which is to educate each person to their best potential and provide a statement that this has been done.
And on the other; “some courses cannot admit all who are capable of doing them. The ATAR is an effective means to select among those who are suitable when only some can be successful.”