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The university’ s deputy vice-chancellor academic, professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, said it also“ has a published schedule of bonus points. It also publishes information about all of its admissions mechanisms”.
The University of Queensland, unlike most undergraduate programs in Australia, does not use the ATAR as its primary criterion. Instead, the institution relies on the Overall Position( OP) system to determine place offers.
UQ says it supports the review of that system that is now underway, but with care.
“ We welcome the recently announced review into the Overall Position system,” UQ deputy vice-chancellor academic, professor Joanne Wright, said.“ The greater mobility of the Australian population is another reason to consider providing applicants with comparable opportunities nationwide.”
As for ATARs, Wright said the school’ s leaders see setting a minimum score as an opportunity to strengthen the community’ s understanding of tertiary entry in Queensland, adding that UQ does not support minimum entry scores that would compromise access to a tertiary education.
She explained that ATARs did not necessarily provide an adequate measure of the attributes a student would need to succeed in a course.
“ We periodically review the outcomes for students entering UQ on a range of entry scores in a variety of programs to ensure a balance is maintained between demand for courses and the availability of places,” she said.
Asked if a standard minimum ATAR score would affect students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the deputy vice-chancellor said that UQ offered a range of initiatives specifically to assist such students.“ Two initiatives are the UQ Link program and scholarship opportunities for students who have been educationally disadvantaged due to their circumstances or geographic location,” she assured.
Officials from other universities expressed reservations about university autonomy, the limits of the ATAR’ s ability to predict success and the impact imposed minimums would have on the quality of the student experience.
“ We have no plans to set a minimum ATAR across the board at this time,” University of Sydney vice-chancellor and principal Dr Michael Spence said.“ The University of Sydney is deeply committed to ensuring that the most promising students, whatever their social or cultural background, can thrive and realise their full potential, and focusing only on their ATAR attainment may not be the best way to encourage this.”
He said the university’ s stance was that providing a quality experience for all students of all backgrounds helped to ensure the university’ s success.
“ We have not significantly expanded student numbers under the current demand-driven system,” he said.“ There has, consequently, been no reduction in the quality of our students.”
Victoria University was also against a national minimum.“ We believe in the autonomy of universities to set the entry standards for their courses,” Victoria University vice-chancellor and president, professor Peter Dawkins said.“ We are subject to appropriate regulatory oversight designed to ensure appropriate standards and it is our responsibility to ensure that our students meet those standards.”
He added that Victoria University focuses on its students, regardless of their backgrounds, and as a dual sector university has flexibility in its entry and exit points.
“ We also have a commitment to provide additional support, for example in the areas of language, literacy and numeracy, where students need it,” he said.
Setting minimum entry scores for school leavers would be likely to result in“ some students who currently can enter a bachelor’ s degree not being able to do so immediately”, Dawkins explained. In that case, he said, expanding the offering of sub-degree programs would be important, as this would guide students with lower ATARs towards successful entry into bachelor’ s degrees.
Under a minimum-ATAR system, students with potential aptitude based on criteria other than that score also might be denied an opportunity to start courses.
Dawkins said this could be a problem because other criteria might be“ better predictors of likely success and essential attributes for a successful career”.
“ Many universities, like VU, are using more sophisticated entry pathways, such as dual-credit programs, which are providing exciting new partnerships with schools and attracting students to tertiary studies, ensuring they are better prepared and have a better chance at succeeding,” he said.
He was also amongst those who warned that minimum scores might disproportionately affect students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
“ Research shows that there is a high correlation between low ATARs and financial and social disadvantage, meaning that capping places based on an arbitrary ATAR would result in more academic and financial advantage being provided to those who are already privileged, at the expense of those who are disadvantaged,” he said.
Professor Richard James, pro vice-chancellor equity and student engagement at the University of Melbourne also did not see standard entry scores as a good idea.
Instead of widening participation, we’ re restricting participation.
James said,“ The University of Melbourne has strong demand for all its new-generation degrees and our clearly-in ATARs are the highest in the sector. Combined with the highly effective Access Melbourne program that takes into account a broad range of criteria for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, the university has in place high-quality student selection practices and student outcomes.”
The‘ widening participation’ agenda In an interview with Charles Sturt University deputy vice-chancellor Garry Marchant, the university’ s position on this issue was clear,“ We don’ t think there should be any change in the current policy”.
There is no need to impose any minimum scores, for a number of reasons, he said:“ ATARs are not perfect predictors of success. At the very high end, they’ re very good predictors; at the very low end, they’ re very good predictors, but in the middle, which includes the 50 to 60 to 70 range, they’ re not perfect predictors.” It’ s weak, Marchant said.
“ The bottom line is, the whole policy issue relies on an argument that ATARs determine the quality of graduate outcomes, which is not a sensible argument,” he said.
Marchant said Charles Sturt didn’ t have a set minimum ATAR score. In some programs, it has gone below 60, but not below 50.“ We’ re involved with a lot of indigenous communities, and as we know, a big part of ATAR is socially determined,” he explained.“ It’ s about what school you go to, what resources are available to you or in the place where you live.” This is why regulating the ATAR across universities might be a problem for regional institutions. Marchant also agreed that increasing the ATAR minimum could very well filter out some students of specific backgrounds.“ Instead of widening participation, we’ re restricting it,” he said. He elaborated that it seemed counter to the widening participation agenda.“ The government and the university have jointly invested in a whole lot of programs to help students upgrade any shortcoming, build up their skill sets and their academic skills so they can succeed; so going back to raising up minimum ATARs, cutting some people out, just doesn’ t make a lot of sense,” he said. n
www. campusreview. com. au Issue 8 2013 | 7