Peter Mader: The ATAR might be high stakes, but is it fit for purpose?

One of the limitations of the ATAR is that it takes a range of inputs from complex variables and converts them into a single number. In the workforce few of us would have been recruited through such a measure, writes Peter Mader.

The Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank or ATAR was phased in from 2009 to produce a nationally comparable percentile ranking of Year 12 graduates.

It is designed to enable Australia’s universities to more simply identify students for entry into their undergraduate courses. But a number out of 100 is not the best indicator of a secondary school graduate’s aptitude, readiness and suitability for a tertiary pathway.

One of the limitations of the ATAR is that it takes a range of inputs from complex variables and converts them into a single number. In the workforce few of us would have been recruited through such a measure. Most likely (and quite rightly) we were selected on a range of measures including knowledge, skills, experience, attitude and potential.

Peter Mader, SA Secondary Principals' Association. Picture: Supplied

If our key educational goal is to get the right secondary graduate into the right tertiary pathway it is time for us to look beyond a single measure to a set of multiple measures. The medical profession has led the way by insisting students are selected using a combination of testing, an interview and the ATAR.

Another of the ATAR’s limitations is that it has become the educational goal for too many of our secondary students.

The SACE Stage 2 Review (2018) acknowledged the negative impact of students trying to maximise their ATAR, where “getting in” has become a more important goal than “getting ready”. Consequences of the ATAR being such high stakes include an increase in student anxiety and depression and schools gaming the system to maximise scores, albeit, within existing rules.

The ATAR might be high stakes, but is it fit for purpose? One of the ways to test this would be to correlate undergraduate performance with ATAR scores. A few years ago, such a study was undertaken at the University of NSW. It concluded that, after the first year, there was almost no relationship between high school achievement and university achievement.

It is no surprise, therefore, that universities themselves have been exploring alternatives. A key driver has been the move to a “demand driven” approach. Having more places in universities expands the menu for gaining access. 2016 undergraduate enrolment data shows only 26 per cent of places in our domestic universities were accessed using an ATAR.

So, if universities dispensed with the ATAR as a single means of entry to undergraduate courses, what should take its place? The answer lies in the intersection between a student’s knowledge, achievement and development and what a university course demands — deep knowledge and a range of professional or vocational skills.

Peter Mader is SA Secondary Principals’ Association president