Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre blames technical blunder for incorrect ATAR notice

QUEENSLAND Year 12 graduates have been wrongfully told they were ATAR “ineligible” in a technical blunder that has impacted tens of thousands of students.

QUEENSLAND Year 12 graduates have been wrongfully told they were ATAR “ineligible” in a technical blunder that has impacted tens of thousands of students.

The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre was conducting an internal test of their ATAR processes on Saturday night when the testing rolled over to their “live production space”.

ATAR notifications were issued to 24,000 Queensland Year 12 students, with QTAC confirming they may have been told in the notification that they were ATAR ineligible.

QTAC chief executive John Griffiths issued an apology to the Year 12 cohort yesterday for the “technical error”.

“This has no doubt caused additional anxiety during what has already been a trying year for our school community,” Dr Griffiths said.

“We receive the Year 12 result file from the QCAA on Monday, which is when the actual calculation of the Queensland ATAR begins.

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“We are on track for official release on Saturday 19 December.”

In a statement, Education Minister Grace Grace insisted QTAC was not part of her department or overseen by her – and that it was governed by an independent board of directors representing Queensland universities.

Deb Frecklington Facebook post about the ATAR stuff-up - What a bungle! All year 12 students have been sent this message....ATAR Ineligible! These year 12 students have spent 12 years to be the first ever with the new system! Typical of the Palaszczuk Government another IT fail. All talk....can’t get the basics right.

“I understand QTAC has apologised for this error,” she said, as she wished students “best of luck” for when their results are released.

QTAC won’t actually receive the Year 12 results from the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority until this Monday and will officially calculate the ATAR results on Thursday.

They will then load the ATAR results into their portal on Friday before releasing them the next day.

LNP education spokesman Christian Rowan described the blunder as “extremely heartbreaking” and said it was concerning for the affected students.

“Our Year 12 students in Queensland have suffered an incredibly difficult year with COVID-19,” Dr Rowan said.

He suggested it needed a “full and transparent explanation” by the Minister.

This is the first year that the ATAR ranking system has been used for university entrance in Queensland following the phasing out of the OP score last year.

Originally published as Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre blames technical blunder for incorrect ATAR notice