policy & reform
The demand driven system, Drake said, gave a more diverse range of students greater access to university.
The head of the school of education at Deakin University, Professor Christine Ure, says several factors account for the drop of ATAR cut-offs in education courses.
“ ATARs reflect the complex interplay of supply of places, demand from applicants, relative competition from other courses, and the balance of applicant types,” she said.
Professor John Loughran of Monash University sees ATAR as a measure of demand.“ The greater the demand, the higher the ATAR,” he said.
“ It is important to remember that if places in education were as limited as they are in some other courses and not as readily available as they are across all universities, then ATARs would be much higher because it is a measure of demand,” he said.
At Monash, education programs have relatively higher ATAR requirements than those of other universities. Applicants for primary education and secondary education double degrees all had ATARs above 80 and the majority of admitted school leavers have an ATAR above 85, he said. At Berwick, they increased the ATAR for Bachelor in Education P-10 by 2.35 points to 73.05.
At the Clayton campus all school leaver applicants needed an ATAR of 80 or more, at Peninsula it was 75 or more with a bunching around the high 70’ s to 80’ s. At Berwick, the university increased the ATAR for the B Ed( P-10) course by 2.35 points to 73.05.
While explaining ATAR as a measure of demand, Loughran gives another reason for the rise and fall of ATAR cut-off.
“ In my time in education, I have seen the ATARs move in direct response to the public perception of teaching. When teaching is criticised and poorly treated, the ATAR drops as less school leavers see it as a good career move,” he said.
Loughran says that talks about teaching have been critical of the profession in the past 12 years, thus students opt not to pursue it as a career. Consequently, universities lower the ATARs to pull up the demand again.
“ Unfortunately, for some universities, they are so heavily dependent on education faculties that they are forced into dropping ATARs to keep the overall numbers up to maintain their overall economic standing. The tighter the budgetary situation in a faculty and a university the more reliance on student numbers,” he said, expressing concern over the need to continuously decrease ATARs just to ensure student numbers.
What ATAR really measures
In reaction to the NSW discussion paper, the University of Western Sydney said that regulation through ATAR cut-off may exclude potentially good teachers.
“ This is particularly true for students who have come from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, where they may have undertaken the HSC years while engaging in high levels of part time work or family care responsibilities, or both.”
Other educators are critical, too, of the over-emphasis on ATAR scores.
“ The focus on the ATAR score distorts the real picture about who enters education courses,” Ure said.“ Most ATARS are above 60. The highest scoring education applicant at Deakin this year had an ATAR of 94.24.”
“ ATAR is one measure but it is not the only measure of ability,” said Loughran.
“ It is reasonable to think about ATAR as one way of understanding student ability, but the real issue is what happens during the course.”
Universities take charge
Federal School Education Minister Peter Garrett has said:“ If people starting their university courses aren’ t meeting that [ ATAR ] requirement but can demonstrate potential, universities will have to work with them to ensure they reach these standards before they graduate.’’ Several educators agree with this statement. Ure says, from day one of entry, universities are already there to support students throughout the four-year rigorous program. She believes that teaching graduates must demonstrate the behaviours and knowledge that are in line with the course regulations and the national professional standards for graduate teachers.
“ Also, please remember,” said Drake,“ that [ ATAR-ranked ] school leavers join a large cohort of mature students and this mix provides for a wider range of capable teachers for diverse school settings.”
Victoria University, Drake said, has a new university curriculum designed to improve student experience, aiming at high-quality service, support, and learning environment for students.
Indeed, education and teaching programs of various universities play a great role in training future teachers.
ATAR is an important indicator of a student’ s ability but there are also other measures to take into account. But with a groupthink that focuses on the image of low ATAR cut-off scores, one may also start considering how public perception can make or break the building of respect around this proud profession.
As Loughran said:“ It is a complex issue that is made way too simplistic by just using ATAR as a measure of the status of teaching, but sadly, when it is portrayed as the only measure, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and continues to undermine a profession that is crucial to the health of the nation.” ■
Join us in deepening our understanding of assessing the impact we have on student achievement & learning
Visible Learning plus conference 2013
Cognition Education and Macmillan Professional Learning are delighted to host the inaugural Visible Learning Conference: Evidence, Impact and Action in Brisbane, Australia 18-19 July 2013.
The conference workshops and presentations are based on the five strands of Visible Learning plus. Keynote speakers are:
• Sir Michael Barber
• Professor John Hattie
• Deb Masters
• James Nottingham We are calling for paper submissions until 4th March, 2013 Registration closes 17th June 2013.
For more information about the conference, registration and paper submission please visit visiblelearningplus. com / whatson
www. campusreview. com. au Issue 2 2013 | 23