Push for non-exam uni entry

Curtin University has warned that some schools are trying to sidestep the Curriculum Council to get more students into tertiary study without doing Year 12 exams.

Curtin deputy vice-chancellor for education Robyn Quin said she was concerned that schools were looking for ways to avoid compulsory exams.

"There is a flight away from external exams and my concern is that there are efforts afoot to try to find other ways into university than sitting the external exams," she said.

Professor Quin said some public schools had approached Curtin asking if it would offer "enabling programs", which students could do while still at school and obtain direct entry to university. She would not say which schools.

"So far we've said no because what that essentially does is destroy the whole Curriculum Council's reforms of upper-school education," she said.

This is the first year when WA Certificate of Education exams are compulsory unless students are doing a trade certificate or taking courses at stage one, the easiest of three stages of difficulty.

"In a lot of schools there is a concern the students do not want to sit external exams," Professor Quin said. "That puts a lot of pressure on schools to find alternative means of satisfying these students' aspirations."

All universities have enabling programs for people who have not qualified for a degree course, but Professor Quin said they were not usually offered in schools.

Curriculum Council chairman Bill Louden said if an enabling program was taken with disciplined-based WA Certificate of Education courses at stage 3 or 2, it should help students with further university studies.

"However, if the enabling program is studied in conjunction with stage one units, it would not generally provide sufficient grounding," he said.

Education Minister Liz Constable said universities approached admission in a range of ways, particularly when trying to achieve targets for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Murdoch University offered a pilot enabling course at Lakeland Senior High School this year to students who had chosen subjects which would not qualify them for university.

Senior deputy vice-chancellor Gary Martin said the number of such programs was likely to increase as universities strived to meet Federal Government targets to have more tertiary-educated students by 2020.

Edith Cowan University offers a preparation course at Balga and Manjimup senior high schools.

Vice-chancellor Kerry Cox said the course started before the new WA Certificate of Education system, when the schools could provide only non-TEE subjects.

Murdoch said this week it would slash its minimum tertiary admission rank by up to 15 points for many courses next year, including teaching, nursing and commerce.