Page 2068 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 25 October 1989
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Mrs Grassby: That is what is wrong with him.
MR WHALAN: I do not know. I think I would have preferred to go to a co-educational school.
Mr Moore: You would have been a better person for it.
MR WHALAN: I am quite sure. There must be some explanation. The question relates to the Government's attitude towards the accreditation arrangements at the end of high school in the ACT. The ACT Government provides an accreditation based upon the year 12 certificate. It is based on a period of progressive assessment of the performance of students over the years 11 and 12 in the high school system. That system is used as the final assessment by all government secondary schools in the ACT, with the exception of Narrabundah, where there is a provision for the international baccalaureate, and also with the exception of a daytime course provided at TAFE, where the higher school certificate has been presented up until this year but it will be phased out as from next year. Next year will be the final year of the higher school certificate in TAFE.
All non-government secondary schools, with the exception of one, do use the year 12 certificate as the basis of their accreditation at the end of secondary school. The one exception to that is the Boys Grammar, which uses the New South Wales higher school certificate as its accreditation at the end of year 12.
I think it is very important to state that the ACT year 12 certificate is universally accepted as an indication of a student's performance at the end of year 12. That universal acceptance, of course, is particularly demonstrated in the university environment, where a year 12 certificate ranks as one of the best forms of assessment of performance in high school. The Boys Grammar, for reasons known best to itself, has chosen to use the higher school certificate. In correspondence that I have seen the school describes its justification for that as being "sound educational reasons". I have never had explained to me precisely what those sound educational reasons are.
The Government's position is quite clear. In 1986 the Commonwealth Government, which was then administering education in the ACT, contacted the Boys Grammar School and said that as from 1987 there would be no further funding of the higher school certificate examination in the ACT. You must realise that the New South Wales Government does, in fact, charge for the cost of conducting the higher school certificate examination. Whereas New South Wales students receive it free of charge, that charge is applied to students outside New South Wales. That charge is, I understand, approximately $600 per head. So it runs into quite a substantial sum when a significant number of students are attending for the examination.
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