The HSC should be cancelled for the sake of the students and teachers

The last two years of school for our senior students have been unprecedented and special rules should apply for the next stage of their education.

There has been no compelling evidence or reason presented that warrants the HSC 2021 going ahead under Covid conditions.

Given the growing concerns about the mental health of our young people and the lack of official response to the threat, it is completely incongruous to proceed with an examination that is already the major cause of stress among high school students.

This is a senior school cohort that has been trying to get its collective head around the HSC curriculum if not in complete lockdown then under some form of social restriction.

Thousands of Year 12 HSC students begin to get their Pfizer vaccinations at the Mass Vaccination hub at in Sydney. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins

Both their Year 11 and Year 12 study programs were disrupted, making them a unique ­cohort that requires a unique plan that adequately records their schooling achievements without driving them to mental ill-health or worse.

The HSC is flawed but it remains one of the best markers of school achievement in Australia.

But the extraordinary circumstances of the Covid pandemic gives the education system permission to bend the rules this year for the sake of the students and the teachers.

Schools are more than capable of recording fair assessments of how their students have performed to be used as guides for universities and potential employers.

Requiring the tertiary system to come up with a Plan B for offering university placements is easily more appealing than having a generation of young people who may never ­recover from the unnecessary stress of an HSC we don’t need this year.