tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/university-graduation-14508/articlesUniversity graduation – The Conversation2019-05-14T10:46:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1157892019-05-14T10:46:23Z2019-05-14T10:46:23ZLong considered a high honor, the valedictorian tradition faces an uncertain future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274141/original/file-20190513-183100-5fhefx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More and more schools are doing away with the valedictorian honor.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/high-school-valedictorian-giving-her-commencement-265976831?src=mP8ds4YQiQznm77ufRcFdQ-1-1">Joseph Sohm from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As college and high school graduations take place, thousands of select students will step to podiums to deliver their graduating class’s farewell remarks at commencement ceremonies throughout the United States.</p>
<p>These students – usually the graduating seniors with the highest grade point average, or GPA – are recognized with a formal title: valedictorians.</p>
<p>Though the tradition goes back to colonial times, the validity of valedictorian honor is increasingly being called into question. A <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/farewell-valedictorian-high-schools-drop-tradition-of-naming-top-student-1507301285">growing number of schools</a> are changing how they bestow the honor or <a href="http://thecspn.com/?p=42452">doing away with it altogether</a>.</p>
<p>For instance, this is the last year there will be a valedictorian at William Mason High School, an Ohio school that is one of the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/ohio/districts/mason-city-school-district/william-mason-high-school-15778/student-body">best regarded in the nation</a>. School leaders announced May 9 that the school would no longer have a class valedictorian or salutatorian as of next year, citing “<a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/09/mason-high-eliminating-valedictorian-honor-improve-mental-health/1154068001/">unhealthy competitiveness among students</a>.”</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3HFcrcYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education historian</a>, Mason High School’s decision underscores what I see as a long-standing problem in American education: Our <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2089982?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">emphasis on competition and awards</a> in academics sometimes leads to problematic measurements of learning.</p>
<h2>A question of honor</h2>
<p>Recent <a href="http://manninglive.com/2017/06/23/east-clarendon-graduate-sues-district-3-board-superintendent-principal/">news reports</a> call into question whether the valedictorian honor is truly about merit or hobbled by biases of race and class. </p>
<p>Similar questions are being asked about American higher education in the wake of this year’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/college-admissions-scandal">college admission scandal</a>. Indeed, in a growing number of cases, students who have earned the top grades in their graduating class – but who happen to be more have darker skin hues than their peers of European descent – are finding themselves being <a href="https://hiplatina.com/latina-valedictorian-jesse-bethe-high-school/">asked to share their valedictory glory</a> with other students. But before we get into those examples, a little history on the origin of the valedictorian is in order.</p>
<h2>Roots in the colonial college</h2>
<p>The tradition of selecting a valedictorian goes back to <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Their_Majesties_Royall_Colledge.html?id=rdxGAQAAIAAJ;%20https://scdbwiki.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/Botetourt_Medal">1772 at The College of William & Mary</a>.</p>
<p>It began when Norborne Berkeley – formally known as Lord Botetourt – arrived from England to serve as Governor of Virginia. He fell in love with the colony and college. To show his appreciation for the school and the student body, he put up a gold medal as the prize awarded to the student most skilled in Latin written composition and oratory. The victorious student, selected by the college president and faculty, was then designated as the valedictorian. The word is derived from the Latin <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/valedictory#etymology">“valedīcere</a>,” which means “to say goodbye.” Accordingly, the valedictorian would deliver the farewell address at commencement. It was an enjoyable way for the honored student to show off with good natured quips and quotes in Latin. To this day at The College of William & Mary, the <a href="https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2018/commencement-awards-recognize-commitment-at-wm.php#botetourt">Lord Botetourt Medal</a> is the top prize given to a graduating senior for scholarship.</p>
<h2>Valedictorians in high school</h2>
<p>By 1920 many American public high schools had adopted the practice of awarding honors, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/schooling-america-9780195315844?cc=us&lang=en&">including valedictorian</a>. Latin oratory <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100879730">gave way to the top GPA</a> as the criterion for selecting the valedictorian.</p>
<p>Historical perspective complicates the measuring of scholarly performance. While high academic achievement is <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975712">admired and coveted</a> today, this was not always so in American colleges. The “Gentleman C” was the appropriate grade sought by socially prestigious students. An “A” was scorned as “poor form,” as documented in my 2019 book, “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/history-american-higher-education-0">A History of American Higher Education</a>.”</p>
<p>In the Yale yearbook of 1904, the senior class actually boasted of its low academic achievement, noting:</p>
<p><em>Never since the Heavenly Host with all the Titans Fought
Saw they a class whose scholarship approached so close to naught</em></p>
<p>Yale students were by no means alone in their quest for mediocrity. In a custom still in place today at the United States Military Academy, each year the <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/cult-goat-west-point-tradition">“Goat” award</a> goes to the graduating senior who has the lowest grade point average. And at the United States Naval Academy, the honor of graduating “last in the class” is known as “<a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-05-27-9905270145-story.html">The Anchor</a>.” It is a deceptively difficult feat that requires doing as little as possible without flunking out.</p>
<p>Despite these curious instances of striving to be average or less than average, being selected as class valedictorian is generally considered to be good fortune by academically ambitious students. </p>
<p>For example, in 2010, Katie Washington, of Gary, Indiana, was <a href="https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns/health/2010/university-of-notre-dame-valedictorian-katie-washington-a-terrific-role-model/">celebrated</a> for “making history as the first black valedictorian from the University of Notre Dame.” The then-21-year-old biology major had a minor in Catholic social teaching and an overall 4.0 GPA. Today, Katie Washington Cole is a <a href="https://health.usnews.com/doctors/katie-washington-cole-1419459">psychiatrist in Chicago</a>.</p>
<p>Being selected as class valedictorian, however, doesn’t always bring a happy ending.</p>
<p>In January 2019, the Boston Globe published “<a href="https://apps.bostonglobe.com/magazine/graphics/2019/01/17/valedictorians/">The Valedictorians Project</a>.” The series featured some troubling examples of what became of recent valedictorians from Boston’s public high schools. While being a high school valedictorian often brought admission to a prestigious college, it was not a predictor of professional success, such as later being accepted to medical school. Most tragic were examples such as a Boston high school valedictorian who graduated from Dartmouth College, but then ended up <a href="https://apps.bostonglobe.com/magazine/graphics/2019/01/17/valedictorians/hopeful-to-homeless/">homeless and unemployed</a>.</p>
<p>The Globe’s reporting shows how academic achievements usually have some connection with <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/imprint/perseus/basic-books/page/about-us/?lens=basic-books">opportunities and privileges</a>. Talent counts, but it coexists with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242698679_Expectations_and_Reality_in_American_Higher_Education">non-merit factors</a> of race, gender, income, connections and luck.</p>
<h2>Honor eludes diverse students</h2>
<p>Some black or Hispanic students report being unfairly excluded from holding the valedictorian honor.</p>
<p>For instance, Jasmine Shepard, a black student from a school district in the Mississippi Delta, is suing the school district for <a href="https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2019/05/06/black-student-forced-share-valedictorian-white-student-lawsuit-cleveland-school-district-mississippi/3651530002/">forcing her to share the valedictorian honor with a white student</a> in 2016. According to her lawsuit, the white student had a lower GPA. Similar cases were filed by black students in <a href="http://manninglive.com/2017/06/23/east-clarendon-graduate-sues-district-3-board-superintendent-principal/">2017</a> and <a href="https://arktimes.com/news/arkansas-reporter/2011/09/07/mcgehee-student-who-sued-over-valedictorian-title-speaks">2011</a>, although the 2011 case was ultimately <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/594/Kymberly.pdf?1557439493">dismissed</a>.</p>
<p>In 2018, Jaisaan Lovett, the first black valedictorian at University Preparatory Charter School for Young Men in Rochester, New York, was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/07/03/u-prep-valedictorian-speech-jaisaan-lovett-lovely-warren-munno/757445002/">denied the opportunity to give the valedictory address</a> – a decision that may have stemmed from his history of protest at the school.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Natalie Ramos, a graduating senior from Jesse Bethel High School in Vallejo, California, protested on social media when she was told she would have to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/teen-school-first-latin-valedictorian-203912896.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw">share the valedictorian honor with nine other students</a>. She was particularly upset because she was to be the first Latina valedictorian at her school. The school principal reversed the decision after GPA calculations had been “updated” and announced that Ramos would be the <a href="https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2019/04/24/vallejos-bethel-high-valedictorian-controversy-resolved/">sole valedictorian</a>.</p>
<p>The movement away from valedictorian poses a troubling dilemma for American education. Recognition is growing that singling out the student with the top GPA is not the best way to identify the best students. However, the valedictorian honor is beginning to disappear just as students from diverse backgrounds are becoming the first students of their background in their schools to win the honor.</p>
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<header>John Thelin is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/history-american-higher-education-0">A History of American Higher Education</a></p>
<footer>Johns Hopkins University Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.</footer>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John R. Thelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>More schools are deciding to scrap the tradition of naming a valedictorian – just as students from diverse backgrounds are becoming the first of their background to win the honor.John R. Thelin, University Research Professor, University of KentuckyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/589542016-05-08T15:05:33Z2016-05-08T15:05:33ZUniversities and the financial sector must work together to plug skills gaps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121625/original/image-20160508-2540-1s06l67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a big gap what between universities teach and what industries need.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africa’s CEOs <a href="http://www.pwc.co.za/en/press-room/talent-skills-gap.html">are worried</a> that there aren’t enough skilled professionals on the continent. The financial services sector is particularly hard hit by this shortage. </p>
<p>In South Africa, where I teach and conduct research, many financial institutions complain that a dearth of skilled professionals leaves their employees vulnerable to being poached by competitors, both local and from elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aifmrm.uct.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Financial-Services-Sector-Assessment-Report-2014.pdf">Research</a> conducted jointly by the <a href="http://www.aifmrm.uct.ac.za/">African Institute of Financial Markets and Risk Management</a> at the University of Cape Town and the Western Cape province’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism confirms these concerns. One company involved in this Financial Services Sector Assessment Report estimated its staff turnover at 9% per year. More than half of this was attributed to poaching by competitors.</p>
<p>Companies are being forced to import skills from the rest of the world. South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training publishes a list of the top 100 <a href="http://www.inseta.org.za/downloads/Top%20100%20scarce%20skill%20occupations%20in%20south%20africa.pdf">scarce skills</a>. Finance managers are sixth on the list; accountants come in at number 12. Actuaries feature, too.</p>
<p>Yet the South African government’s <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=5837">spending on education</a> is at an all-time-high. R60 billion was spent on tertiary education in the 2013/14 financial year. Why hasn’t this increased spending brought South Africa any closer to plugging the skills gap? The answer lies in the disconnect between universities’ existing programmes and employers’ requirements.</p>
<h2>Graduates don’t meet needs</h2>
<p>Research by <a href="http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/theme/youth_employment/education-skills-mismatch/">African Economic Outlook</a> suggests that there’s a major mismatch between new jobseekers’ skills and what employers want. The numbers underline this: African Economic Outlook notes that South Africa currently has around 600 000 unemployed university graduates and 800 000 vacancies in the jobs market that employers are struggling to fill.</p>
<p>We spoke to Paulette Bourne of the financial statutory body <a href="http://www.bankseta.org.za/">BANKSETA</a> while researching this article. Bourne, the organisation’s work-integrated learning and bursaries manager, says there are a number of critical skills absent in the financial services sector. These include legislative compliance, specialist financial skills, customer interface, management and leadership, and information technology. University graduates just aren’t filling these gaps. Bourne told us that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Universities are expected to produce human capital according to labour demand. Yet the universities’ programme registration process is not sufficiently responsive to industry demand; hence the perception that graduates are not meeting industry requirements.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Financial Services Sector Assessment Report that my colleagues and I produced <a href="http://www.aifmrm.uct.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Financial-Services-Sector-Assessment-Report-2014.pdf">back this up</a>. The respondents, who came from a wide range of financial services companies, said that graduates didn’t understand the industry’s processes, procedures and how different business areas are connected within the type of company. The respondents added that, on average, graduates required between 12 and 18 months of industry immersion to become valuable to an employer.</p>
<h2>Positive developments</h2>
<p>There are two conclusions to draw from this. The first is that universities desperately need more postgraduate programmes that focus on professional qualifications. Apprentice-style training and internships should be a key part of these programmes.</p>
<p>Secondly, academia needs a close alignment with employers and potential employers if it is to produce graduates who are more in tune with a specific industry’s demands.</p>
<p>There are some new examples of such programmes both in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent. For instance, the African Institute of Financial Markets and Risk Management launched a Master of Commerce in Risk Management of Financial Markets at the beginning of 2016. This was done with <a href="http://www.biznisafrica.co.za/bankseta-backs-a-new-approach-to-create-job-ready-graduates-for-financial-market/">funding support</a> from BANKSETA. The programme has been designed as an occupational qualification and contains components of workplace immersion. There’s been deep consultation with the financial services industry. The curriculum will be reviewed annually by the industry and will be adjusted to keep up with their feedback.</p>
<p>Another project that’s seen the importance of this approach is the <a href="http://discover.sap.com/skills-for-africa">Skills for Africa Programme</a>, which was launched in Kenya and Morocco in 2013 and <a href="http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2015/09/sap-africa-launches-sa-chapter-of-sap-skills-for-africa-initiative/">South Africa</a> in 2015. Unemployed young professionals receive training in business technology skills. The programme is developed with the help of companies that act as partners to the initiative. All graduates are guaranteed paid positions with the programme’s partners. </p>
<h2>How industry can get involved</h2>
<p>The way forward is clear. The academic community needs to take into account four key ingredients to producing truly useful graduates: student selection from diverse backgrounds; the acquisition of both technical skills and a comprehensive understanding of the work environment; an apprenticeship ethos throughout the degree; and a determined focus on “job readiness”.</p>
<p>But this cannot be achieved without industry and government involvement in every aspect of the process. That includes curriculum development and assessment, research co-supervision, teaching, mentoring and lecturing, and facilitated access to experts and data.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.pwc.co.za/en/press-room/talent-skills-gap.html">PwC global survey</a> cited at the start of this article revealed that 40% of CEOs look to governments to do more to create a skilled workforce. An overwhelming 93% of business leaders realise that it is up to them to change their strategy for attracting and retaining talent. This could include becoming more active architects of the graduates they would like to hire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Financial institutions in Africa are worried that universities aren’t producing graduates with relevant skills for the industry.David Taylor, Director of the African Institute for Financial Markets and Risk Management, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/501462015-11-26T04:33:00Z2015-11-26T04:33:00ZWhy Gaudeamus igitur has no place at graduations in African universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102793/original/image-20151123-18246-papro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why should African graduates be honoured with a Latin song when the continent has plenty of its own music and ways of celebrating?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Direct Relief/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you have attended a university graduation ceremony, or even just watched one in a movie, you will recognise <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3287680?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Gaudeamus igitur</a>. This Latin song has become the default graduation march around the world, including Africa.</p>
<p>This is just one example of the <a href="http://alternation.ukzn.ac.za/Files/docs/13.1/05%20Leb.pdf">African epistemicide</a> - or war on African knowledge - that is decried by many of the continent’s academics and intellectuals. They are rightfully suspicious of a tendency by universities to ignore African ways of knowing, learning and celebrating. In their place one finds canonical rituals of the West - like Gaudeamus igitur.</p>
<p>2015 has been a year of challenges to South African universities’ status quo. It began with the <a href="http://rhodesmustfall.co.za/">Rhodes Must Fall</a> campaign, which led to the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes from the University of Cape Town. Then students at Stellenbosch University stood up against the institution’s <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-28-op-ed-open-stellenbosch-tackling-language-and-exclusion-at-stellenbosch-university/#.VlK7BHYrLIU">language policy</a>.</p>
<p>This all culminated in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall">#Feesmutfall</a> movement. So: Rhodes fell; fees have fallen…why shouldn’t Gaudeamus igitur?</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The University of South Africa’s choir performs Gaudeamus igitur at a graduation ceremony.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The baby with the bath water</h2>
<p>Are African university academics so intellectually incapacitated that they can’t shed practises which exclude the continent’s own knowledge systems? Is it not time that African thinking, and indeed African ways of knowing, should come to the fore is such spaces? </p>
<p>This should not be equated with throwing the baby out with the bath water. For instance, some have debated whether William Shakespeare <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-shakespeare-be-taught-in-africas-classrooms-44381">should be taught</a> in Africa’s classrooms. My answer is yes. For as long as English is the subject of study in Africa, Shakespeare should always be viewed as a relevant resource. </p>
<p>This view is also held by esteemed African English scholar and chair of the University of South Africa’s English Department, Professor Lesibana Rafapa. In his <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15166747/Dissolved_black_identity_in_dominant_critiques_of_black_South_African_Literature_written_in_English">maiden lecture</a> as a full professor Rafapa argued that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Characterising, recognising and appreciating the “strangeness” of South African English literature written by blacks is a gateway to the unity we aspire to as a nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such an advocacy should not be misconstrued as condemning Shakespeare to the dustbin. In fact, the professor is suggesting that in the hands of a capable and well-meaning English educator, the study of Shakespeare can be liberating and fulfilling indeed.</p>
<p>How, then, does Shakespeare relate to a graduation march?</p>
<h2>African rituals ignored</h2>
<p>The cardinal point is that Western tradition, through many of its agents - including music - has supplanted most cultural rituals. Surely Africans knew how to celebrate before contact was made with the West? Most African weddings and ceremonies have always been splendid and engaging. But many on the continent are ignorant of this fact. Instead, they swallow Western rituals hook, line and sinker: singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow” at birthday parties or watching a woman walk down the aisle to the strains of “Here comes the bride”.</p>
<p>As a musician, educator and member of the African academic corps, I feel challenged by the status quo. Perhaps even more so by the urgency displayed by students across the country. All self respecting African universities should do away with the singing of Gaudeamus igitur for several reasons.</p>
<p>Firstly, the students for whom the graduation ceremony is about, parents and guardians who toiled to get them there, do not relate to a song that started out in the 1870s as a German <a href="http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Gaudeamus_Igitur">student song</a>. At worst, it literally celebrates colonial conquest. Whenever it is sung, the African is momentarily banished to some imaginary cave as the conqueror’s culture is celebrated.</p>
<p>Secondly, eradicating such songs from our intellectual and communal repertoire will free up the much needed space for African musical innovations and inventions. </p>
<h2>Time for a new grad march</h2>
<p>This sort of discussion is not new in South Africa. It has featured in <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-07-16-op-ed-the-anthem-debate-time-to-talk-about-shared-future/#.VlLHWnYrLIU">debates</a> about the country’s multilingual <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=265">national anthem</a>, which was adopted in 1994. In the same vein I challenge academics, choristers, musicians and composers to raise their hands. Gaudeamus igitur, like so many other foreign-originated rituals, must fall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Mapaya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Latin song takes centre stage at graduation ceremonies around the world, including in South Africa. Isn’t it time the continent used its own methods to celebrate major events?Geoff Mapaya, Associate Professor, Department of Music, University of VendaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/364782015-01-20T19:25:06Z2015-01-20T19:25:06ZThe ATAR debate: students need to be able to finish uni, not just start it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69486/original/image-20150120-24465-jz3g3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students with low ATARs are less likely to graduate from university, but very likely to leave with debt. So is it ethical to give places to all-comers?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Controversies surrounding university courses with <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/universities-ramp-up-offers-to-lowest-tier/story-e6frgcjx-1227188986104">low ATAR admission requirements</a> have become a January ritual. Once universities make their offers to potential students, debates start over whether widening opportunities to attend university are a sign of declining standards in Australia’s higher education system.</p>
<p><a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/node/36743">Statistics released last week</a> show a steady increase in offers to lower-ATAR university applicants. In 2010, fewer than 2000 applicants with an ATAR below 50 received any university offer. By 2014, more than 7000 such applicants received an offer. If <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/firstround-vtac-offers-decline-as-more-students-apply-direct-to-uni-20150119-12tawz.html">early reports of the 2015 offer round</a> are a guide, that number will grow this year.</p>
<p>The policy trigger for the latest decline in ATARs was the full lifting in 2012 of previous caps on the number of undergraduate university places. While some universities set minimum ATARs based on academic requirements, most ATAR cut-offs reflect supply and demand. In this academic auction, the price of entry has dropped because universities offer more places.</p>
<p>Sometimes this trend is framed as evidence of falling standards. The <a href="https://www.ncsehe.edu.au/truth-about-atars/">main response to this</a> is that what matters is how well a student does at the end of their course, not the start. Minimum ATARs would deny opportunities to people who could successfully complete a course.</p>
<p>Last summer, I worked with David Kemp on a policy review of the <a href="http://education.gov.au/report-review-demand-driven-funding-system">demand driven funding system</a> that led to these decreasing ATARs. This was one of the most difficult issues in the review. While we rejected proposals for a minimum ATAR, we also found considerable evidence that there is a problem.</p>
<p>A study tracking students who started their courses in 2005 found that only a little more than half of students <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/completion_rates_of_domestic_bachelor_students_-_a_cohort_analysis_1.pdf">with ATARs of 59 or below</a> had completed a degree by the end of 2012. Some were still enrolled, but the vast majority of the rest had dropped out. By comparison, for students in the top ATAR ranges completion rates were 90% or more. There is a clear pattern in the data: the lower the ATAR, the lower the completion rate.</p>
<p><a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/review_of_the_demand_driven_funding_system_report_for_the_website.pdf">Shorter-term attrition data</a> gives little reason to believe that things have improved for later low-ATAR students. Nearly a quarter of students with ATARs below 50 are not re-enrolling for their second year, although some will come back after time off. </p>
<p>The dilemma here is not so much opportunity versus excellence as opportunity versus likely outcomes. We do not want to deny people a potentially life-changing chance at a degree and more interesting work. The argument has an equity angle, as students from disadvantaged backgrounds are over-represented among lower-ATAR school leavers. But nor do we want to waste a student’s time on a course that has a high risk of not leading to a degree, but a near certainty of leaving them with student debt. </p>
<h2>So how do we fix it?</h2>
<p>The first step to improved completions is better decision-making by prospective students. It would be wrong to think that lower-ATAR applicants are naive about their prospects. More than half of the applicants with an ATAR of 50 or less who receive an offer <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/node/36745">reject it</a>. </p>
<p>But with data on the high rate of non-completion hidden in obscure government reports, people who do accept their offer may not realise the risks they are taking. With better information, they may make different decisions.</p>
<p>The second step is making universities more accountable for their admission policies. In theory, <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013C00169/Html/Text#_Toc330548949">regulation of admissions</a> has been tightened in recent years. Universities need to be able to prove that they: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… ensure that students have adequate prior knowledge and skills to undertake the course of study successfully.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They are also supposed to have measures in place to identify and assist students who are struggling academically. In practice, it is not clear how the <a href="http://www.teqsa.gov.au/">Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency</a> is enforcing these requirements. </p>
<p>Public reporting on attrition rates by basis of admission at each university, rather than just the <a href="https://docs.education.gov.au/node/35983">aggregate numbers that are published now</a>, would help. It would inform potential students, and if the rates are poor this could prompt regulatory action. Universities shown to have effective programs would get public credit for their success. </p>
<p>The third step is to think through our institutional provision of post-secondary education. One recommendation of the <a href="http://education.gov.au/report-review-demand-driven-funding-system">demand driven review final report</a> was to expand the use of pathway colleges. These colleges typically offer the academic equivalent of first-year university, but taught differently. They aim to build some of the study skills that led to lower ATARs, and without which students are likely to fail at university. </p>
<p>The government <a href="http://education.gov.au/other-higher-education-institutions">accepted this recommendation</a>, but the controversies surrounding <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-few-embrace-higher-ed-changes-but-many-more-have-reservations-29043">fees and funding cuts</a> look likely to sink the entire higher education reform package. </p>
<p>While institutional reform will probably have to wait for another time, improved information could be done fairly easily. It does not have to go to the Senate and would not cost very much money. It would save money if more lower-ATAR applicants decided not to accept their offers.</p>
<p>Reform needs to be geared towards not just increasing enrolments, but to what is in the best interests of students and prospective students. We want to give them a chance to complete a degree, not just to start one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Norton was a government-appointed co-reviewer of the demand driven system. </span></em></p>Controversies surrounding university courses with low ATAR admission requirements have become a January ritual. Once universities make their offers to potential students, debates start over whether widening…Andrew Norton, Program Director, Higher Education , Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.