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School’s out forever?
ACER report shows decline
in university expectations
among students.
Sue Thomson interviewed by Loren Smith
“School’s out for summer,
School’s out forever”
F
or an increasing number of Australian
high-schoolers, Alice Cooper’s lyrics
resonate. Especially with 15-year-olds
from lower SES backgrounds, according
to a new ACER report.
16
Based on PISA data, the report came to
several conclusions. Most prominently,
between 2003 and 2015, there was
a 9 per cent drop in Year 9 students’
expectations of attending university (from
63 per cent to 54 per cent).
While this is higher than the OECD
average of 44 per cent, of concern is
that disadvantaged students – even
high-achieving ones – were much more
likely than advantaged ones to drop this
expectation. This particularly applied
to those in Queensland, the Northern
Territory and Tasmania.
Expectations of attaining a TAFE
diploma concurrently lowered, from 8 per
cent to just 3 per cent.
However, teens had higher hopes
of completing Year 12 when asked in
2015, compared to 2003; this measure
increased by 12 per cent over that period.
For Sue Thomson, deputy CEO
(research) at ACER, these trends are
generally worrying. Although she doesn’t
subscribe to the view that all students
should attend university, she takes issue
with the economic inequity the data
displays.
Campus Review spoke with Thomson
to find out more about what the ACER
report says about students’ attitudes.
CR: Have expectations fallen across the
socioeconomic board?
ST: Across all socioeconomic groups,
the proportion of students who aspire to
university or expect to go to university has
decreased since 2003.
The proportion of disadvantaged
students has decreased slightly more than
the proportion of advantaged students,
for example, but it has gone down across
the board.
Do you have any possible reasons for these
decreases?
All we can do is conjecture at this point
because we’re not looking at actual