Opinion: QTAC must come clean on reason for four-day delay

The delay in uni offers in Queensland announced this week is more than just an inconvenience. And the body responsible has to come clean about what went wrong, writes Kylie Lang. 

When students miss deadlines, it’s stiff cheese but now that the situation is reversed and it’s the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre running late, students are expected to be understanding and patient.

Talk about double standards.

On Wednesday QTAC announced an unprecedented four-day delay in releasing its largest tertiary offer round for Year 12 graduates.

This lands thousands of university hopefuls in limbo but we don’t know exactly how many because QTAC won’t tell us. It has also refused to explain what went wrong.

Why the secrecy?

Kids pay $55 to QTAC to put in their preferences so it’s perfectly reasonable many are demanding a refund.

Recent graduate Hayley Hoang will have to wait longer for her offer. Picture: Richard Walker

You might say it’s only a delay of four days so suck it up, but it’s not that simple.

Opportunities to study interstate will be compromised due to the now ill-timed crossover of offers being released.

And as one student told The Courier-Mail, her job prospects could be in jeopardy.

“I went to a job interview today and they said they needed my university timetable as soon as possible and obviously this will drag out that process for my job now,” Hayley Hoang said.

QTAC is responsible for the course application process for all major Queensland tertiary institutions and its board comprises representatives from seven universities.

In a statement to The Courier-Mail, a spokesperson said the delay would “allow QTAC to maximise the number of applicants that receive offers in this offer round”.

In last year’s January round 14,761 offers were made across 1254 courses.

Let’s wait and see how much this figure increases, thanks to a delay no student – or university it would seem – saw coming.

The QTAC spokesperson said: “We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause applicants and families.”

QTAC boss John Griffiths. Picture; Richard Walker

Inconvenience isn’t the half of it – try chaos, stress, bewilderment and disappointment.

Shadow education spokesman Dr Christian Rowan said the delay would be distressing to many students.

“There needs to be a clear explanation as to how this has occurred and steps taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Indeed, and that explanation should have been forthcoming yesterday.

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