Covid-19 disruption to school year sparks calls to axe exams and ATARS
As schools shift online, a leading educator has launched a petition calling for exams and ATARS to be ditched for 2020. Here’s why we should do away with the tests.
Education
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One of Australia’s leading innovative educators has called for Year 12 exams to be axed this year, saying the Covid-19 crisis will see many students unfairly disadvantaged.
Former principal and consultant Peter Hutton has launched a Change.org petition to federal and state education ministers, saying there should be no compulsory exams and the ATAR dropped for 2020.
There have been nearly 1000 signatures in less than a day.
“I am calling for senior exams to be abandoned this year as inequity will be exacerbated due to disparity in technology and remote learning,” he said.
Mr Hutton said the only upside to the looming school shutdowns was an opportunity for a reset and a rethink on what he described as the failed ATAR university entrance system.
“What better time to kill the ATAR off completely than now, when an already demonstrably inequitable system is made further inequitable due to disruption, remote schooling and inequity in technology provision,” he said.
While many private schools shifted online last week the Andrews Government announced Sunday that schools would start holidays from Tuesday.
State Government schools have been testing online programs.
Decisions around closing schools have been contentious with some families already removing children from school and some teachers, many who say they have risk factors or have elderly parents, upset that they being used as “babysitters”.
“I propose that students still have to demonstrate their competence in the area of study as per the relevant study design as assessed by their teacher and authenticated/moderated by another teacher in the subject area,” he said.
“Students will receive an satisfactory level of competence for the unit.”
Mr Hutton, who was principal at Templestowe College, and now convenes a group called The Future Schools Alliance, said the ATAR was not used for entrance in a lot of tertiary courses. Instead institutions used portfolios, interviews and tests.
Medicine already has a selection mechanism in place in the University Clinical Assessment Test (UCAT).
He said in Australia only 26 per cent of tertiary undergraduate entrants were accepted based on their ATAR in 2017, according to the Mitchell Institute report.
“Universities may elect to come up with their own criteria for entrance. This could include a literacy and numeracy test, but this would be at their discretion,” he said.
“If they make the entry requirements too onerous, students will vote with their feet. We have already seen a move by employers to look beyond which tertiary institution a student attends, and instead rank suitably qualified applicants on their soft skills displayed during the recruitment process and what they have actually done in the ‘real world’.
“The current selection system is significantly flawed anyway with approximately one student in four dropping out in first year and only half those who start a degree actually finishing it anyway.”
Mr Hutton said elite courses such as science and medicine already ran their own entry selection tests.
He said with a shift to remote learning the gap between the haves and have nots will be exacerbated.
He said there will be many socio and economically disadvantaged families who will not have access to computers, Wi-Fi and a place to study. As libraries have been closed the students will not be able to find a place to study.
Further, some students have complicated home lives dealing with trauma and domestic violence and schools are a safe place for them.
Mr Hutton said while there was much talk about ATAR not defining students the reality under the current situation that it was a “big stamp on your forehead and some students took a decade to shake off the perception that they were ‘just average’”.
But, he said, the ATAR was based on a flawed model.
Mr Hutton said even before the Covid-19 outbreak there were great inequities between schools.
He said many private schools had the resources to apply for SEAS – known as Special Entry Access Schemes applications in far greater numbers. Many government schools did not have the resources to complete the paperwork as thoroughly and therefore students often missed out.
SEAS allows changes to the exam arrangements whereby a student who may have anxiety, for example, can sit SACS and exams in a separate room or have extra reading time.
Mr Hutton said 2020 needed to be treated differently given the disruption expected to occur.
He said whatever decision was made the landscape for tertiary entry in 2021 would be very different.
This year saw a downturn in the number of applications to universities with students lamenting that they were being spammed by Universities to take up places.
As the Covid-19 unfolds the high level of international students, which has underpinned the system, are in limbo.
“In many ways this is a huge opportunity for a reset,” he said.
He said Australia was the wealthiest country in the world measured by median wealth but the 30th worst of 38 OECD countries for educational equity
“Students are already under considerable increased stress as a result of this pandemic. This is on top of existing statistics that show one in seven students experience a significant mental health issue before the age of 14.,” he said, citing Beyond Blue research.
“Let us show young people some humanity and compassion by relieving them of this additional stressful and needless burden.
“Why put ALL students through this stressful process when only a quarter of students use it. Interestingly those who enter university using a non ATAR pathway do about as well on average as those with an ATAR of 85,” he said.
He said the pandemic “will no doubt significantly dent Australia as a destination for international students, so universities and other tertiary institutions will have the capacity to take more students and there really is not a big down side to a more educated populous”.
The #NOATAR2020 petition launched by Peter Hutton.
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