It speaks volumes about our education system that an increasing number of young people are choosing to not sit their final exams, finishing secondary school instead with what’s known as an unscored VCE. | EDITORIAL
“This crude strategy to manipulate median final scores is cruelly marginalising students who with appropriate support could successfully complete school and embark on tertiary education.”
While skulduggery might yet remain a small contributing factor, a subsequent investigation by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority found the rise in numbers was strongly linked to schools supporting students with mental health issues who would “find it extremely stressful or impossible to complete a scored VCE program”.
Clearly, for some vulnerable young people amid a youth mental health crisis, the unscored option is a vital Plan B, a valve that relieves the pressure and helps them to stay in school. It also seems sensible that those with no interest in a university education be spared the horrors of final exams.We are concerned, however, about what Bendigo principal Dale Pearce calls a “contagion effect”, with peers normalising a choice that would have once seemed highly unusual.
VCAT, meantime, strongly advises students to stay the course, if they can, saying that “scored assessment provides a more detailed record of student achievement and is the best way to maximise opportunities and pathways to further education and training”. Opting out necessarily reduces the number of future options; choosing to go unscored is not a decision to be taken lightly.
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