Queensland students to receive ATARs from 2019

Queensland Education Minister Kate Jones has revealed details of the state’s senior secondary overhaul, with the Overall Position (OP) set to be replaced by the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). ATARs are currently awarded in all other states and territories.

The current system

Currently, students completing Year 12 in Queensland can choose to work towards an Overall Position (OP) or a selection rank, depending on the subjects they study. Students who are eligible for an OP are placed in bands between 1 (the highest) and 25 (the lowest) according to their overall performance in Authority subjects. There are no external exams in Queensland — instead, students are scaled against other students in their class based on their performance in school-based assessment, and again against the rest of the state based on the results of the Queensland Core Skills (QCS) test. For more information, see Understanding the school curriculum in Queensland — QCE.

What’s happening?

Students graduating in 2018 will be the final year group to receive OPs, with ATARs to be introduced for the current Year 9 cohort. As the only state or territory not using ATARs for university entrance, the changes will help bring Queensland in line with the rest of the country as the national curriculum continues to be implemented.

In addition to a new tertiary entrance score, Queensland will also introduce external assessment, with trials to take place in select Year 11 subjects in mid-2016. External assessment will contribute 50 per cent of a student’s overall score in maths and science, and 25 per cent for most other areas.

Other changes include the removal of the QCS test, with the last test to be held in 2018.

The ATAR

The ATAR is percentile ranking of all students in a particular year level, based on performance in school-based and external assessment. Students receive an ATAR between 0.00 and 99.95, which indicates how they performed compared to their state cohort. For example, if a student receives an ATAR of 80, they performed better than 80 per cent of students in their year level — putting them in the top 20 per cent of their state.

Useful links

• New graduation rankings for QLD students — SBS