On Wednesday at 4pm, examiners will call “pens down” on the final exam of the 2020 HSC. Perhaps it’s appropriate that the subject is drama, something our long-suffering students have seen too much of this year. Surely the COVID-19 experience has highlighted that it’s time for pens down on the HSC too?
For a while there, it looked impossible that these old-fashioned exams could be held in 2020. What was Plan B in those long weeks when education experts thought that we might not be able to go ahead with exams? This page was intentionally left blank. Even if we agree the purpose of the HSC is that top-performing students get first pick at popular post-school opportunities, this demonstrates a serious lack of imagination.
It’s time to call ‘pens down’ on the HSC, for good.Credit:Wolter Peeters
How many people know that only a quarter of university students use an ATAR to gain entry into university? One school I know has more than 50 per cent of students accepted into uni through early entry! Early entry programs are another way that universities work out whether students are ready for their studies. And what is this obsession with ranking students? Surely schooling is not a “winner takes it all” endeavour? Perhaps Sportsbet could just step in and run a book on the best and brightest.
Seriously though, if we want to test whether students are suited to the work that they’ll be trained for, let’s look at the way employers recruit staff. Does this process really need to take seven months and stress students out so much? We need a different form of end-of-school credentialing that accurately reflects what our young people can do and gives them the flexibility to show their knowledge and skills.
