Universities take on low-scoring students

Students who averaged final exam scores of 50 per cent or less across four Year 12 subjects are being offered university places in courses such as nursing and teaching.

Figures to be released today by the Tertiary Institutions Service Centre show it is becoming easier to get into university now that the Federal Government has removed caps on the number of students institutions can enrol.

From more than 19,000 applicants to WA universities, 86 per cent will receive a main round offer today, up from 81 per cent last year.

Of those, 77 per cent will be offered their first choice, compared with 75.5 per cent last year.

Despite the total number of offers falling by 0.8 per cent because of a drop in mature-age applicants, more than 90 per cent of school leavers who sat exams will be offered a first-round place.

TISC will also release university course entry cut-offs, which are determined by the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank obtained by the last applicant to be offered a place in that course.

A student's ATAR is a score between zero and 99.95 which reports their ranking relative to all other students. Murdoch University's cut-off rank for its primary school education course this year is 60, which could be achieved by a student averaging just 50 per cent across four Year 12 courses.

And Murdoch and Edith Cowan University are taking nursing students into their courses with an ATAR as low as 55, which equates to a rough exam average of 47.25 per cent.

The cut-off ATAR for nursing and education at Curtin University is 70.

Under the University of WA's new course structure, students can only enrol in nursing or teaching after completing one of five undergraduate degrees, which all have an ATAR cut-off score of 80.

Murdoch and ECU said motivated students with an adequate educational background would succeed if given high-quality teaching and support. Health Minister Kim Hames and Education Minister Liz Constable said they were not concerned that students who would be responsible for caring for patients and teaching children had low scores, as long as they met the standards required by their university course.

Dr Constable said it was up to universities to determine course cut-offs.

"What is more important is the quality of their courses and the quality of the graduates they produce," she said.

"Nurses need to excel in all facets of the profession and the score they receive at secondary school may not necessarily be an indicator of which students will make great nurses," Dr Hames said.