Admissions Transparency Implementation Working Group Consultation Draft

RMIT University response to

Admissions Transparency Implementation Working Group consultation draft:

‘Improving the transparency of higher education admissions: joint higher education sector and Australian Government implementation plan’

Introduction

Professor Kerri-Lee Krause, the chair of the Admissions Transparency Implementation Working Group, on 1 May 2017 invited RMIT University to provide feedback on the consultation draft by 12 May 2017.

RMIT welcomes the opportunity to make this submission to support the feedback provided verbally to the Implementation Working Group and other stakeholders present at the stakeholder consultation hearing on Monday May 8 2017. RMIT works proactively to help solve pressing public policy problems, to develop long term thinking and evidence, to work together with other institutions and governments at all levels to improve policy outcomes over time. We use our own experience, data and expertise to contribute creatively to policy problem-solving and to encourage informed, responsible decision making.

One of Australia’s original educational institutions founded in 1887, RMIT University now has more than 84,000 students across both vocational education and higher education programs. As one of Australia’s largest Universities, RMITmakes a difference to the lives of our students, our staff and our community through our educational programs.Enhancing the student experience, delivering educational outcomes and producing work-ready graduates are at the forefront of RMIT's learning and teaching activities.RMIT puts the interests of our students first because their experience, outcomes, life chances and contribution are central to our mission as an institution.

RMIT is an accessible and open institution serving the needs of the whole community. We work to offer access to education, employment and partnership on an equitable basis and our research and engagement efforts also contribute to extending access to excellent quality education and research knowledge to the whole community. The principles proposed in relation to Admissions Transparency are closely aligned with RMIT’s core values.

RMITfully supports the principles outlined in the consultation draft and the intent to improve transparency across the Higher Education Sector. Empowering future students to make an informed choice of their educational options is critical to student success in their studies.

RMITcommends Minister Hon Simon Birmingham and the Higher Education Standards Panel for their report Improving the Transparency of Higher Education Admissions and the six (6) agreed implementation objectives stemming from the report.

RMITalso commends the Implementation Working Group on the considered and complex work undertaken to develop the draft Implementation Plan that has been released for further consultation.

RMIT would welcome the opportunity to participate in the development of the recommendations, either as part of a working group or directly, or potentially and perhaps more effectively through the Heads of Student Administration (HoSA) Network or TACs.

We note that for the purpose of our submission, RMIT terminology is programs (referred to as courses at most other universities) and courses (referred to as subjects or units at most other universities).

1. Is the proposed approach likely to be effective in increasing transparency and public understanding of how contemporary admissions to higher education work?

RMIT is broadly supportive of the draft implementation plan but would note some concern around public understanding and potential for misinterpretation of information sets and thus discouraging prospective applicants rather than encouraging them.

The draft implementation planis well-informed, setting out a rigorous program for improving the clarity, consistency and completeness of admission information across Universities in Australia, which will enable prospective students to make an informed choice on their education options.We at RMIT are strongly committed to improving our admissions transparency, and the implementation plan for the most part provides an excellent framework for this activity.We suggest the need for caution, however, with regard to ensuring the information provided is meaningful for the intended audience and does not have the potential to mislead prospective candidates on their likelihood of receiving an offer for a program.

Proposed terminology and information sets

Itis unclear from the consultation paper whether the proposed improvements and terminology have been tested with applicant groups, to find out whether they will indeed benefit from the changes. Our experience suggests that applicants tend to be very focused on ensuring they get into the course closest to what their ATAR will allow – often without great consideration about the program. The proposed publication of more detailed ATARfigures for courses may further encourage this kind of behaviour.

Given the scale of change and investment on the part of government, TACs and institutions, we suggest it would be highly desirable that a range of stakeholders including applicants, parents, Year 12 teachers, etc. are consulted on the proposed terminology and information sets to ensure ease of understanding and relevance.This in turn would suggest implementation should commence for applications submitted from 2018 after this checking has occurred, rather than in August 2017 given the tight timelines this would create. It is critical that the information sets are informative and in language is clear, unambiguous and easily understood by those who are intended to use it.

Further, in RMIT’s opinion, the current order of the profile data may lead to misinterpretation: the ordering of the information sets seems to place an emphasis on ATAR entry. This has limited meaning for non-recent school leavers and direct applicants admitted on the basis of other factors, who are an important source of prospective applicants who we’d wish to seek to encourage to participate in further education.

In addition, while numbers and percentages of students previously admitted would give some indication of future admissions practice, this is only indicative and there is again a risk that a small number, or the relative size of previous entry cohorts, could be misinterpreted as meaning prospective applicants who would consider themselves to fall into a particular category would be unlikely to gain entry.

Lastly there is also a risk that by including numbers of students at the course level this may be misinterpreted as an indicator of cohort/class sizes and may again act as a deterrent to prospective students. Conversely, to attempt to include this data at a cohort level would be complex for institutions to prepare and would be complex for users to understand which may run counter to the transparency intentions.

In response to the question posed during the stakeholder consultation session as to what might assist with this risk, RMIT would support the recommendation from the Heads of Student Administration (HoSA) network that a more visually engaging and positive indicator for prospective students, careers and advisors and family would be to include a green tick box indicator against each entry method under which applicants have been most recently admitted before the data columns.HoSA also suggestedthat consideration begiven to only presenting percentages for general use and leaving the reporting of specific student numbers for sector analysis.We would also like to suggest previous tertiary education be amended to read previous post-secondary education as a more intuitive and easily understood term for new applicants and their families.

1. How achievable are the proposed implementation timelines, including commitments to deliver a ‘best endeavours’ version of the proposed information sets to inform students applying to enter study in the 2018 academic year?

The proposed time-frame for publishing course-level sets of admission information (August 2017) is tight, given that consultation on what these sets require won’t be complete until June.

RMIT has an unusually large number of undergraduate programs, and as such, it will be challenging for us to meet this time-frame, as the set of information to be gathered will require consultation with academic programs to determine their minimum ATAR threshold, their selection method for the broad applicant groups. Experience has shown that documenting selection methodology takes time and repeated discussions.While RMIT will undertake best endeavours to make this information available, we are highly concerned about the limited timeframe to do so within, noting that this data collection will be required at a critical period of the academic calendar over the examination and result processing period.

Further, it will be challenging for RMITto provide full information on credit pathways available towards each course, by August 2017. We have a project under way to provide prospective students with reliable information on available credit towards each course, but this will not be complete by late August 2017.

Victorian- universities will be reliant on VTAC to provide the sets of ATAR data by course, and the proposed sets are somewhat different from the data VTAC has provided in the past. Given the short implementation timelines proposed, we caution that it will be very challenging for VTACto be able to provide these sets by July 2017 for an August 2017 implementation: 2018 is a more realistic time-frame.

Please note also our concern under question 1 above that the assumptions about new terminology and sets of information may not have been validated by research with applicants, parents and secondary schools. It may be advisable to carry out such research and validation in June-July 2017, postponing all implementation until 2018, but giving the TACs as much notice as possible of the new ATAR data sets institutions will need from them.

1. If there would be difficulty in delivering the commitments proposed, what could be changed to make them achievable?

We believe we can provide the set of institutional and course information proposed, in a rough ‘best endeavour’ version, by August 2017, exceptfor the following course-level information, which we could provide by August 2018:

• selection methods for broad applicant groups
• credit pathways and agreements giving credit towards the course.

Please note also:

• our suggestion under question 2 above that it is unlikely VTAC will be able to provide the revised sets of ATAR data by course by August 2017: August 2018 is a more likely time-frame for these
• our concern under question 1 above that the assumptions about new terminology and sets of information may not have been validated by research with applicants, parents and secondary schools. It may be advisable to carry out such research and validation in June-July 2017, postponing all implementation until 2018, but giving the TACs as much notice as possible of the new ATAR data sets institutions will need from them.

1. Do you have any comments on the proposed four broad groupings to describe the basis of admission for applicants to higher education?

a. Recent secondary education

b. Previous higher education study

c. Previous vocational education and training (VET) study

d. Work and life experience

RMIT is is very supportive of the intent of changing the functional terminology for admissions. A consistent approach nationally will help to embed the understanding and language. While we cannot see any major issues or difficulties this might raise in the long term, we note it may take time for stakeholder groups to adjust to the new terminology. Adoption by media and communications will be critical to give the new terminology visibility and credence.

The proposed sets of consistent terminology (Appendix B) seem for the most part sensible and an improvement over existing varied terminology. One possible source of confusion, however, is broad applicant group d, ‘Work and life experience’. This group includes applicants who completed Year 12 more than two years ago (but no other tertiary study). In many cases these applicants will be admitted on the basis of their ATAR, and their work and life experience will be irrelevant to the decision. This in turn makes problematic the proposal in Appendix C that we publish, for the institution as a whole and for each course, the total of applicants admitted on the basis of ‘Work and life experience’. In fact almost all of these applicants will be admitted on the basis of their ATAR, plus a selection task in some programs. Publishing the figure will raise false hopes that applicants can be admitted merely on the basis of work and life experience.

Another concern about broad applicant group d. is that applicants whose main entry qualification is an ATAR more than two years old may feel excluded – it isn’t immediately obvious where they fit in to any of the broad applicant groups.

1. Do you agree that the proposed approach to Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) thresholds is reasonable (i.e. replacing the use of the terms ‘cut-off’ and ‘clearly in’ with functional terms describing the lowest ATAR made an offer in the relevant period?). What issues or difficulties, if any, might this raise?

Concerns about publishing lowest ATAR offered in previous intake

Although these terms seem clear, and an improvement on previous terms and definitions, we have significant concerns about publication of the lowest ATAR made an offer in the relevant period, as follows:

Such an offer may result from significant re-ranking for a combination of personal circumstances. Such a large re-ranking would not be available to most applicants. There is also significant volatility in selection towards some programs from year to year. The program may not select so far down the ATAR ranks in the next intake.

Consequently there’s a risk that publishing this lowest offered ATAR may deceive other applicants about their chances of being considered for a program: they may waste preferences on programs for which they are unlikely to receive an offer.

Another disadvantage is that the student who received the lowest ATAR offer may realise that this occurred if the lowest ATAR offered is published. This may impair their confidence and sense of belonging in their course. Students who have received significant reranking for personal circumstances deserve our support and we should avoid publishing their specific ATAR score.

Need to provide exception to ATAR publication requirements for programs that select primarily on the basis of a selection task

In Appendix B and Appendix C of the consultation paper there’s an assumption that ATAR data and certain ATAR scores should be published for all courses. This is problematic for a substantial subset of courses at RMIT that select primarily on the basis of applicants’ creative folio. Recent secondary education applicants must have an ATAR and meet a Year 12 English prerequisite to be considered, but once they meet this threshold requirement, selection is entirely on the basis of their creative folio. An applicant with an ATAR of 30, and a good creative folio, could receive an offer. Publishing a ‘lowest ATAR at which an offer was made’ or a ‘minimum ATAR required for consideration to enter in next intake’ is not particularly useful for these courses: it may confuse applicants. It would be more transparent if for these courses we could publish a statement such as: ‘Any ATAR – selection primarily based on creative folio’.

Our preferred approach to publishing ATAR data

We suggest that publication of the following set of data would provide the greatest transparency without confusing applicants:

• Future intake year;
• ATAR at which applicants are guaranteed an offer to the course
• ATAR below which no-one will be made an offer
• Maximum total ofATARadjustment points possible in the course(with calculator available for students to estimate their chances of selection, given their individual circumstances for which adjustments may be available).
• Previous intake year;
• ATAR(without adjustments) at or above which all applicants were offered

(Programs that select primarily on the basis of a selection task would be able to publish a statement in these fields: ‘Any ATAR – selection primarily based on [selection task]’ – see discussion under previous subheading above.)

1. Do the proposed ‘information sets’ meet the need identified by the Higher Education Standards Panel for comparability of the information available from different providers about the requirements to be admitted to study at each institution and each course that they deliver?

The proposed information sets would certainly be comparable (except for courses that select primarily on the basis of a selection task – see discussion under question 5 above).

The recent secondary education subgroups in Appendix B seem clear and sensible. At RMIT, however, almost all recent secondary education entrants to undergraduate study are required to have an ATAR. We never admit recent secondary education applicants on the basis of other criteria without an ATAR. So the third recent secondary education subgroup (‘other applicants demonstrate suitability through various means including aptitude tests, preparatory courses and work experience’) is never relevant at RMIT.

1. Does the proposed approach set out in the draft implementation plan adequately inform prospective students about admission options or pathways that do not use ATAR? If not, how might this information be improved?

Students with an OP or IB have an equivalent ATAR calculated for them in Victoria, so for the purposes of this discussion these applicant groups are covered by the discussions of students with ATARs, and publication of ATAR figures, under questions 4 and 5 above.