This week, the HSC Honour Roll recognised 19,600 ‘Distinguished Achievers’ who achieved top band results in their courses, making the cohort the largest in NSW history.
While the Honour Roll has long been a highly sought after placement for students, critics argue that such rankings may be increasing stress among students and perpetuating socioeconomic disparities between schools.
One University of Sydney academic says the Honour Roll feeds into the highly competitive high school education industry, to the detriment of STEM subjects.
“Most publicly celebrated are Bands which are based on Band Descriptors determined internally within groups of subjects,” Manjula Sharma, Professor of Science Education and Director of the STEM Teacher Enrichment Academy’s Faculty of Science, told The Educator.
“For Physics/Chemistry Band 5 Descriptor is, ‘applies knowledge and information to unfamiliar situations…, and Band 6 is ‘demonstrates an extensive knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts, including complex and abstract ideas’.”
In comparison, for Business Studies, Band 6 Descriptor is, “demonstrates comprehensive knowledge and understanding of business functions and operations”.
Consequently, says Professor Sharma, the teaching and learning tasks as well as assessments are set to these Descriptors, making Physics/Chemistry much more difficult and resulting in smaller percentage of students achieving Bands 5/6.
“Even if students are interested in these subjects, they are advised to not take them as they are likely to get lower Bands and both the students and schools will not be celebrated,” she said. “Teachers are often reprimanded for not achieving sufficient Band 5/6.”
To compound the matter, with its School Success Model, NSW Department of Education sets targets for schools achieving in the top two Bands, Professor Sharma points out.
“Physics/Chemistry don’t stand a chance,” Professor Sharma said. “The ATAR is a different kettle of fish. It takes ‘difficulty’ into account. However, ATARs are released later than Bands and the oomph has gone by then.”
Professor Sharma says the standards-based HSC measurement is “outdated” and needs to be reformed so that it offers a fairer comparison between subjects, and a more accurate representation of a student and school’s performance
“From extant literature, the principle behind standards-based indicators is to provide teachers with qualitative descriptors to inform their teaching and for systems to provide Standards Packages for teachers to do so,” she said.
“For this to occur, there needs to be common framework across subjects with differentiation nuanced to subjects.”
However, in NSW, from the outset, subject areas were given the choice to determine Band Descriptors, counter to the essence of such measures, Professor Sharma noted.
“Elaborate and financially draining processes have been established to justify and maintain ‘quality’ of the Bands,” she said.
“The celebration and lauding of achievements in Bands have cemented them as high stakes drivers of competition.”
Professor Sharma said a fairer comparison would mean deploying a common framework, fewer processes to justify discrepancies leading to financial savings, and the reality of developing standards teaching packages.
“This would mean fairer resourcing of teachers, fairer teaching and fairer representation of student learning and school performance.”
Simpler HSC metrics: fairer, cheaper, and scaling-free
Professor Sharma said reforming the HSC measurement would eliminate the need for complex cohort-based scaling and subject aggregation in ATAR, enhance equity and save money
“There are two elements to HSC measurement, Bands and ATAR and these are often conflated. Both of these are generated from the same initial marks, but each use those data differently for a different purpose,” she said.
“The process used to calculate the ATAR, a rank, is complex in that cohort-based scaling and subject aggregation is used. Nevertheless, the way in which they are computed, the formula, is shared.”
By definition, says Professor Sharma, the Band Descriptors themselves affect the difficulty of subjects.
“And HSC marks generating Bands are based on Band Descriptors. A circular argument!” she said. “The processes, including detail on quality assurance processes are not disclosed.”
Despite this, Professor Sharma notes that the system involves numerous committees and significant costs. However, he suggests that using a common framework for Band Descriptors could align them with the ATAR, saving money and improving equity.
“This would align with the principle behind standards-based indicators espoused in literature and provide for better support for teachers.”
‘Both boys and girls miss out’
Professor Sharma highlights several challenges in closing the STEM gender gap, starting with the disparity between Major Cities and other areas (regional and remote).The first is the difference between Major Cities and Others Areas (Inner and Outer regional, Remote and very Remote).
“Subjects which attract fewer Band 5/6 are going to be taught by fewer schools in Other Areas due the factors mentioned above,” she said.
“Schools in Other Areas tend to be smaller, may have difficulty sourcing teachers, hence are likely to offer fewer subjects anyway. Hence, both girls and boys miss out.”
Professor Sharma pointed out that subjects like Physics/Chemistry/Mathematics lead to in-demand career options, saying STEM covers as a range of subjects – some where there is gender balance, and others where gender imbalance can go either way.
“Physics and Ext Maths have larger proportions of boys, chemistry is on par, and biology has larger proportions of girls,” she said.
“So, the phrase, ‘gender gap in STEM fields’ is likely a misnomer. Is food science a STEM field? So a nuanced approach needs to be taken when analysing this issue. Scientifically, we need to be asking the appropriate questions.”
Professor Sharma said while there has been substantive and increasing investment in supporting Women in STEM over a couple of decades, for subjects like physics, higher levels of mathematics and engineering, “the needle is stubbornly persistent” and suggests it could be “a self-fulfilling prophecy”.
“What is more concerning and is absolutely tragic is that the total numbers of students choosing to do physics, chemistry and higher levels of mathematics are decreasing, in absolute numbers as a fraction of the total cohort,” she said.
“This is a recipe for disaster given that these offer in-demand careers and are what Australia needs for the future workforce.”