Dr Neil Béchervaise

NB Consulting (Australasia) Pty Ltd

Millennium Myopia and the Educational Sleepers [2]: National Curriculum

© 1998 Dr Neil Béchervaise

In the previous edition, I drew attention to the entry of Universities into senior secondary schooling provision. I posed this development as a potential pathway for students, particularly fee-paying students, wishing to by-pass schools during what would have been their final secondary years. I forwarded this initiative as an imperative based on the current manner of commonwealth funding for tertiary institutions.

Senior secondary schooling is, of course, near to the hearts of most who lead schools with post-compulsory provision. Most principals would argue passionately, sometimes even correctly, that they are preparing their students for a productive life in a dynamic and increasingly internationalised work-force. The entry of universities into this field at the cost of senior schooling for the most academically able fee-paying students signals a dire warning to all such educational leaders.

The most promising reaction to the threat of university entry into senior secondary schooling could have been from states threatened with the loss of their most able students from the public system. Without an appropriate school exit certificate, they could have argued, students would be unable to establish credible academic qualifications for a tertiary institution or a prospective employer. The basis for the argument has been dismissed with a stroke at the advent of the ENTER program.

Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank

Faced with ever-increasing public education costs and, before a concerted media barrage, with increasingly less credible provision, particularly at senior levels, the states have accepted the offer of a potentially cheaper, and politically far more biddable, alternative.

The ENTER does not yet displace the year 12 certificates of the states. They retain their educational autonomy and responsibility. The ENTER is based on year 12 results - for those who have completed year 12. But it adds a statistically spectacular addendum to create a nationally equitable tertiary entrance score.

By including the projected results of students who have not completed year 12 studies, the ENTER is generated on the basis of what would [might] have happened if school retention rates had been 100 per cent!

It is always difficult to argue what might have happened. It is almost incomprehensible that we might accept a tertiary entrance rank based on the inclusion of students who were not part of the statistical sample group. So how is this approach justified? On the basis of projections from year-level testing during the compulsory years. To which all states except Queensland are now necessarily committed.

Year level testing in the compulsory years

The introduction of year level testing during the compulsory years has not been popular with teacher unions. It has been equally unpopular among various parent groups who, fearing identification of their children as a minority, have sought to have them withheld from the testing. More recently, as moves to base state funding on student performance have been introduced [eg in Victoria], some principals have moved to remove their students from the testing program on the basis that their under-performance would harm the funding allocation and further disadvantage already disadvantaged students.

Year level testing has been opposed on the grounds that it is neither diagnostic nor equitable; on the grounds that it discriminates against groups on cultural grounds; and on the grounds that it unfairly advantages the already advantaged. These are familiar arguments and each contains an element of truth. Many independent schools have exercised their independence by choosing to retain their own testing programs. Others have turned to independent testing agencies for confirmation of their educational effectiveness. The creation of the ENTER system renders all of these arguments irrelevant. If there is a possibility that a student may wish to enter a tertiary institution at some time [any time] after they complete their compulsory schooling then their success seems likely to be influenced by their performance on compulsory year level tests. No more powerful argument can be put in favour of an educational innovation.

The introduction of the ENTER substantiates the need for compulsory national, but not necessarily identical, year level testing - but at what level? There is widespread acceptance of year level testing at year 3. Acceptance of year 5 testing is increasing on the basis that it is a necessary instrument for establishing degrees of improvement. In New South Wales and Queensland, testing at year 10 remains as an accepted norm. The autonomy of States in developing year level testing has never been actively disputed though it becomes less tenable in the face of a national agreement to compulsory testing.

Year level testing and university access

Public familiarity of and acceptance of a university entrance credential is substantial. Despite heated debate over the detail, the need for some form of selection process has seldom been disputed. The entry of universities into the senior secondary market-place in pursuit of able fee-paying students, however, threatens this acquiescence. It is unlikely that major teacher unions will take the initiative without response. It is equally unlikely that independent schools will accept the loss of their top students - their most powerful marketing strategy - to university after year 10 as an acceptable development.

The ENTER defuses the entire debate. Without even completing year 12, students will influence the entry of their year level peers into tertiary institutions across the country. Universities will not be required to justify early entry fee-paying students as subverting state education systems and states will be able to feel confidence in their autonomy as keepers of year-level testing programs during the compulsory years.

Establishing an acceptance of national frameworks for education based on agreed outcomes, the joint meetings of state and federal education ministers in the late 1980s formed a watershed for educational provision on a national scale. The success of the Hobart Declaration in identifying key learning goals, of the Finn, Myer and Carmichael reports in linking economic needs with educational objectives and the funding priorities of successive governments of apparently conflicting political flavours, have confirmed a continuity in educational provision which would have been unthinkable if it had been the focus of public debate.

Schools are now faced with an imperative. To provide their students with an education which will be acceptable at the point when they might seek to enter post-compulsory studentship, year level testing during the compulsory years will be essential. Regardless of the actual intentions of the cohort of individual students, their best interests will be served by subjecting them to testing programs which may be discriminatory, which may be morale-savaging and which may provoke them to leave at the earliest possible stage to take advantage of the results they have already achieved while financial advantage can still be gained from their leaving.

Optimism, pessimism and a national curriculum

The scenario represented here is at least as pessimistic as the proponents of the ENTER are optimistic. The argument that students completing year 12 courses will be advantaged by higher ENTER scores must be read against the use to which the score will be put. Instead of seeking, and being credentialled for, entry to tertiary institutions within a single state, students will be credentialled to enter any tertiary institution in the country. The credential is truly 'national'. And they will be in competition with every other student in the country seeking entry to tertiary institutions in their home state. This may not be such a welcome competition. More importantly, perhaps, it may make no difference.

One of the greater social engineering experiments in tertiary education, the creation of tertiary institutions in lower socio-economic areas, failed to generate an influx of students from their local and intended area. Instead, students from areas which fed longer standing universities migrated to the newly established opportunities. The ENTER may provide a national credentialling system but there is no guarantee that it will generate significant student mobility. More importantly, its very real threat of reducing the need for excellent senior secondary curriculum development, teaching and socialisation represents a concern that secondary school educators must attend to.

The coherence of the educational sleepers in their development of alternate pathways towards university education will be important for a small minority of students. It may be difficult to justify the enormity of the changes that will have to be implemented against the autonomy that will need to be foregone for such small advantage. There remains a small step from autonomous state-wide multi-level testing during the compulsory years to a cheaper, more efficient nation-wide testing. A national curriculum would reduce the inequities that such a system could produce. No doubt, states would posture bravely in the face of such a proposition. A largely privatised public education system seeking funding to develop its programs might not, however, be quite so principled. But this is another educational sleeper!

Bechervaise, N.E. (1998) Millenium Myopia and the Educational Sleepers [2]. Universities as senior secondary level providers: the new age. Creative School Management.
Melbourne: Philip Roff & Associates

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