By Emily Kowal, Nigel Gladstone and Lucy Carroll
Cost of living, climate change and cybersecurity might be major challenges of our time, but the HSC courses addressing them are the ones mostly likely to be dropped when students start year 12.
Software design, earth and environmental science and economics are among the subjects with the highest dropout rates for HSC students. More than one-third of students who enrolled in these courses in year 11 do not continue with them in year 12.
In 2023, about 4011 year 11 students were enrolled in economics, but this fell to 2646 students in year 12. Earth and environmental science enrolments fell from 2340 to 1501, while software design and development’s enrolments fell from 1724 to 1067.
In contrast, students are more likely to continue with studies of religion, dance, PDHPE and drama in year 12 after taking them in year 11.
The Herald’s analysis of public school data shows the courses most commonly discarded as students move from 12 compulsory units to 10 for the HSC. It compares enrolments in year 11 in 2023 with 2024 HSC results.
Teachers say that students may be more inclined to discard subjects in their HSC year if they perceive them as difficult to achieve a top mark, or if they are not passionate about the course.
The deputy principal at Blue Mountains Grammar, Owen Laffin, said that at the end of year 10 and the start of year 11 there can be “significant parental pressure to choose subjects that will scale well and lead to a high ATAR”.
Year 12 economics students at Macarthur Girls High - the school has steadily increased HSC enrolments in the course and has two classes taking the subject this year.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong
“What that means is students choose subjects they have capacity to excel in but which they are not passionate about, even slightly.” It can be a relief when kids get to drop subjects they don’t have a passion for, he said.
Other courses that more than one-third of students fail to pursue in year 12 include engineering, design and technology, and society and culture.
About a quarter of those who studied physics, biology and business studies in year 11 did not continue with the subjects in year 12.
However, only about 20 per cent of students do not continue with dance or PDHPE in year 12.
The analysis, which is based on subjects with more than 500 enrolled students, does not account for other factors such as students leaving school before reaching year 12, moving interstate or taking accelerated subjects.
In NSW, about 17 per cent of public school students enrolled in year 11 do not complete year 12.
Head of academics at The Illawarra Grammar School, Chris Breheny, said he wasn’t surprised that chemistry and physics had a higher continuation rate than subjects such as earth and environmental science.
He said many subjects with higher drop-out rates are “victims of misconception”.
“We find our students will talk with their feet – when they have subjects that have an established history of success, students tend to trust those subject areas.”
Breheny said the subjects with higher drop-out rates could be attributed to “perceived limited opportunities for achievement”.
Among students who studied software design and development, 40 per cent did not continue with the course in year 12. The subject has been discontinued and was this year replaced with the enterprise computing and computing technology courses.
Martin Levins, a lecturer in digital technologies in education at the University of New England, said students opted out of the software course because they couldn’t see where it was headed. “The department recognised this. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have instigated the new subjects,” he said.
He hopes the subject will pique renewed interest after a recent syllabus makeover, but fears that teachers won’t be equipped to teach the updated course.
A spokesperson for the NSW Education Standards Authority said it did not collect information on reasons for students not enrolling in a year 12 course after completing the subject in year 11.
Dr Robin Nagy, an analyst of school HSC results, said many dropped subjects were perceived as “harder courses”.
“The trouble is that students in NSW have to study 12 units in year 11, and they only have to study a minimum of 10 units in year 12. The wisdom of the masses is they should drop something, and it typically tends to be the hardest course,” he said.
At Macarthur Girls High School, enrolments in economics have grown steadily over the decade, with 17 students enrolled in the course last year.
David Tran, head of secondary studies at Macarthur, said partnerships with universities had paved the way for students to “understand what a career in economics looks like”.
Across the country, high school economics has suffered from plummeting enrolments. In 1992, 30 per cent of all HSC students enrolled in economics, but that fell to 7.8 per cent last year. Four times as many students opt for the business studies course, which is perceived as easier.
University of NSW economics professor Alberto Motta said economics was “not widely offered in all high schools so it cannot reach certain students”, while it was also perceived as a hard subject and the most maths-heavy of similar courses.
Simon Crook, founder of CrookED Science and a former high school physics and science teacher, said earth and environmental science suffered from a perception issue.
“All the sciences are swimming against the tide when it comes to the disparity of band sixes, but earth is swimming against the tide within the sciences,” Crook said.
NSW Education Department deputy secretary Martin Graham said students made decisions around their HSC subject selection for “a variety of reasons, including reducing their subject load as they move into the final year of their HSC and picking up harder extension subjects”.