policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Up to the test
An education expert offers
insights on higher education
entry requirements and
exam preparation tips.
Geoff Kinkade interviewed by Wade Zaglas
W
ith end-of-year exams
approaching, effective study
techniques and ways to prepare
for big exams are top of mind for both
educators and their students.
Campus Review spoke with Geoff
Kinkade, former principal consultant at the
Department of Education, and member of
Studiosity’s Academic Advisory Board, to
get his perspective.
He offered incisive commentary on the
usefulness of ATAR entry requirements
to universities, and pointed out surprising
figures suggesting that ATAR results do not
necessarily predict academic achievement
at university.
CR: Why do you think the ATAR doesn’t
matter that much?
GK: Well, it matters and it doesn’t matter.
It depends on the ATARs that you score.
A couple of years ago I wrote an article that
10
was published in Education Review and it
was called ‘See You ATAR’. It was part of
a discussion at the time, and in it I drew
attention to a number of key points that
I consider yet to be resolved.
The first is that universities have had it
good for a long time. They expect and
have become accustomed to secondary
schools doing university selection testing
using the Australian Tertiary Admissions
Rank. And at the completion of up to
14 years of schooling, the majority of
Australian school students attain a rank, an
ATAR, which is the measure of their school
performance, through the Year 12 exams.
And yet of Year 12 public school
students, only about 46 per cent went onto
study at university in 2016. Also, the ATAR is
akin to a black box whereby the inputs are
known, in terms of scores in each subject,
and the output mysteriously appears,
and then it determines students’ further
education prospects. Getting a lucid
explanation of how the ATAR is formed is
quite a tricky thing.
Since then, there’ve been lots of people
providing perspectives on the ATAR. There
have been issues about equating the
International Baccalaureate to the ATAR,
and the IB as its name indicates, is a kind of
international ATAR. Even within Australia, not
all states use the ATAR. Queensland uses
its overall position and then that’s equated
to the ATAR. Also, Megan O’Connell from
the Mitchell Institute indicates that student
subject choices are made to optimise
their ATAR, so that’s not really consistent
with subject choice in terms of personal
preference and learning style for individuals.
The former president of the New South
Wales Secondary Principals’ Council,
Chris Presland, has stated that the ATAR
is not a particularly reliable predictor of
performance at university. And earlier this
year, the chief scientist of Australia, Alan
Finkel, stated that we should either simplify
or abolish the ATAR.
And it’s supported by the statistics. In
2018, just over 41 per cent of university
applicants were Year 12 students using
the ATAR. Now, of these, over 88 per cent
received an offer. That’s very encouraging
for those students who are wanting to use
the ATAR. Those who scored an ATAR over
90 made up 10 per cent of applicants for
university placement, and those with an
ATAR over 70 comprised over 28 per cent
of all applicants.
At the same time, there were 8000
university placements for Year 12 applicants
with an ATAR less than 50. So, there are
a number of trends that are emerging.
Firstly, the ATAR is a score that’s used by
less than half the cohort, and secondly,
the ATAR score doesn’t necessarily put in
concrete the educational prospects for a
student, because there are other means
by which it becomes possible to gain entry
into university.
I kind of recognise two groups. If you
want to go to uni, and you’re in Year 12, then
the ATAR matters because it determines
your entry point, both by university and by
course. If you’re unsure about university, and
you’re in the second group, then your ATAR
is much less important. There are plenty of
other choices available, and you can get
into university later using other admission