30 November 2012
Recent reports are much exaggerated that there will be a lowering of standards and eventually some type of armageddon because universities are admitting “sub-par” students, as measured by their ATAR.
The Minister, Chis Evans, quickly rejected the hyper-inflated rhetoric about the lowering of standards and the perceived armageddon that awaited us. Others reminded us that we conveniently forget that non-recent school leavers, many with post-secondary school qualifications, make up the majority of those commencing university these days.
From the recent hyperbole, a more insightful question has emerged about whether the original purpose of the ATAR is becoming a casualty in the uncapped demand-driven higher education environment.
Over the past few years the higher education sector has struggled with the appropriate use of the tertiary education rank (TER), variously known as the ENTER score, the University Admission Index and more recently the ATAR (the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank).
All States, with the exception of Queensland, use the ATAR as the primary criterion for entry of Year 12 School-leavers into most undergraduate University programs.
The ATAR, a percentile ranking in 0.05 increments, worked well in a capped environment, triaging ranked students into programs with a finite quota.
The problem is that, over time, the tertiary entrance score has become a proxy used by many to make assertions about a student’s likely success at university.
Does the empirical evidence support this?
At best the evidence supports a marginal relationship, but generally there is no evidence to suggest a causal relationship between the ATAR score and how well a student does at university as measured by their university grade point average.
Data published in the Base Funding Review final report indicated that almost half of students who entered university in 2005 on an ATAR between 30 and 59 had completed by 2010.
At best, the ATAR score is an imperfect predictor of performance at university. Others argue that it should be completely abandoned because it provides no qualified prediction of a student’s capacity to study or complete a degree.
Either way, the use of the ATAR as the sole measure of entry to university is becoming ever problematic. Indeed, admission by alternative pathways is probably going to become the norm in an uncapped environment.
This is certainly the case at the University of Ballarat. We have been progressively moving towards being an open access university. This means placing added attention on outputs not just the inputs.
We have an obligation not to ignore the aspirations of people wishing to experience the transformative effect of tertiary study. This ethos is central to the University of Ballarat. It means ensuring that students have the academic and pastoral support, tuition and education to succeed in their studies to the required standard.
It also means that students have, by the time they graduate, the technical skills and theoretical knowledge required to be work-ready.
So how are we addressing this? We do this by creating support programs including pre O-Week programs called UBReady; by having mentoring groups for every first year student; and through peer assisted study sessions in subjects with traditionally high fail rates. These programs are aimed at supporting students through their education journey. As a result we have seen a 4% increase in our first year retention rates.
Over many years, the University has built a successful supportive program for all students. It therefore is no surprise that consistently four in every five students transition to full-time employment after they graduate. This is the highest graduate employment rate for any university in Victoria.
And so, ATAR scores are not the only answer and they certainly do not correlate with lower standards nor lack of success at university. The system has changed and so should the debate. Our focus should be the quality of the outputs, not a single, narrow measure of the inputs.
See
Quality of education compromised as universities have lowered the bar for entry
A low target: enrolling poor uni students remains a challenge
ATARs & the quality issue
