Tests put year 10 certificate in doubt

By Anna Patty Education Editor
May 22, 2006

THE year 10 School Certificate will become irrelevant under a system of national testing and should be scrapped, high school principals and Catholic education chiefs say.

The Federal Government has this month taken its first steps towards a national year 12 certificate, which would replace all state and territory qualifications.

From next year the Government also plans to introduce national tests for literacy and numeracy in year 9. These will be similar to external tests given in year 10 for the School Certificate.

The move has led to the president of the Secondary Principals Council, Chris Bonnor, labelling the year 10 credential moribund.

"The School Certificate is a dead man walking," Mr Bonnor said. "NSW is the only state that has external testing for a year 10 leavers' certificate.

"The coming Commonwealth benchmark testing for year 9 is going to make it superfluous."

The executive director of the NSW Catholic Education Commission, Brian Croke, said the move towards national testing had placed the School Certificate under the microscope.

"The new national year 9 tests from 2007-8 force us to face a question that we have been avoiding in NSW for too long," Dr Croke said. "Whether we like it or not, we will have to look again at the purpose and place of the School Certificate."

The president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, said the union supported a review of the School Certificate because more students remained at school until year 12.

"However, it is important to recognise that there are still students who leave school at the end of year 10," she said.

The state Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, is now examining how NSW tests would work with proposed national exams for students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

She has appointed Professor George Cooney of Macquarie University to conduct the review. His report is due next month.

Ms Tebbutt said there would always be a need for an end-of-school credential at year 10.

"The NSW Government has no plans to abolish the School Certificate," she said. "I will look closely at Professor Cooney's recommendations with regards to the national assessment system."

The Opposition spokesman on education, Brad Hazzard, said the NSW School Certificate should be reviewed, but that Ms Tebbutt would not "rock the boat" before the election next March.