Year 12 student welcomes ‘shakeup’ and benchmarks for graduating students

A Year 12 student has welcomed a proposed shake-up of the VCE, the biggest since it was first rolled out across Victorian high schools 30 years ago.

Alyssa Shannon, student executive at the Victorian Student Representative Council, said she believes maths should be compulsory to Year 12, like english.

Yesterday the state government announced a review of the VCE to consider introducing literacy and numeracy benchmarks for graduating students in a bid to lift results.

“I don’t think additional testing would work – simply because there’s no implementation of the learning skills in the first place,” she said.

“It should be re-evaluated at the start of high school, what aren’t we learning that’s giving us these results?

“Honestly I wish I had continued to do maths, I think it should be compulsory.

“The only reason why I stopped doing it was because I didn’t need it for the career choice I had at the time.”

To me it beggars belief that you can somehow get your high school certificate, and yet be unable to do basic mathematics and not be competent in english. It quite simply shouldn’t happen – Tom Elliott

Click PLAY to hear the full interview