Is ATAR Accurate Enough for Admitting Students to University?

Tertiary students at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, on May 8, 2012. AAP Image/Julian Smith

Commentary

Back in April 2021, I observed: “The sad reality is that many Australians cannot properly spell, write, or read” and that this malaise is compounded by an inability to correctly apply the rules of grammar. I also noted that “very few students are exposed to the great books of Western civilisation but instead are required to read inferior works that meet the expectations of our progressive elites.”

Many opinion pieces have been published about the declining English teaching standards in primary schools, high schools, and universities.

In a revealing essay, Barry Spurr, Australia’s first professor of poetry, talks about the “vicious circle in the teaching of English.” For him, the discernible deterioration in the mastery of the English language is caused by the poor teaching of English at university, which, in turn, results in the deficient teaching of this subject in primary schools and high schools.

Specifically, he argues that those who have studied English in school are then “further indoctrinated in its postmodern model at the university; and, in turn, many of these graduates come back to the classroom as teachers, to further propagate that learning—and so on, and on.”

Commenting on the failure to promote the reading of the great books of literature in the classroom, he also reveals that nowadays, texts on the Black Lives Matter movement, cyber-bullying, cancel culture, refugees—and one could add climate change—are invading the classroom, while banning the classics of literature from the curriculum.

How Low Do ATAR Admissions Go?

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Spurr’s views are not spurious. Indeed, I recently asked a good high school student whether they still have to read some of the plays of William Shakespeare. She told me that the teacher still discusses Shakespeare’s plays, but students are no longer required to read the texts.

Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting “The Plays of William Shakespeare” contains scenes and characters from several of the Bard’s plays. Daheesh Museum of Art. Public Domain

It could be reasonably surmised that the reason for this weakening of the English language requirement lies in the difficulties associated with the reading of these plays; hence, some meaningless chatter substitutes for the real experience of enjoying the rich language of the great English bard.

What has caused this sordid state of affairs? The reality is that students are admitted to teaching courses at universities with a low Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).

Pallavi Singhal, commenting in The Sydney Morning Herald on admission requirements for study at Australian universities in 2019, disclosed: “Far more students with ATARs in the lowest bands are being admitted into teaching degrees than other fields, with nearly 40 percent of teaching undergraduates scoring below 70.”