As the determinant of university entry for school leavers,the ATAR has outlived its purpose. It is,in essence,unfair and creates far too much stress not only on students,but their families,too.
The ATAR simply fails to factor in the skills and behaviours that a student acquires over 13 years of schooling. Community attitude research released on Thursday by UNSW Sydney’s Gonski Institute for Education finds that most Australians agree.
There is a role for end-of-schooling exams but using them as the means to assess university course entry is anachronistic. Relyng on the ATAR in this way represents a structural deficiency in both the schooling and higher education systems.
For universities,it comes down to reputation and they want to be seen to be taking the brightest and best student. Universities don’t just want to produce accountants,lawyers and doctors;they also want to produce academics and researchers,which also requires high levels of academic ability.
But the ATAR entry approach results in the exclusion of a lot of people who would otherwise be successful at university. This means there is a fundamental issue about equity.
We need a new system to determine a Year 12 school leaver’s capability that does not just rely on a metric relating to few exams mostly in a narrow band of subjects.
So how did we get here?
Universities use the ATAR as an entry requirement rationing tool,not as an academic assessment tool. The ATAR is simply used to limit student numbers. And that is not the best way to find the best doctors or lawyers or accountants.