From Report of the Council of Secondary Education, published in the Annual Report of the Minister of Education and Cultural Activities. Due to its functioning and its representation, the college was dominated by the academic staff of the university. A major change occurred in 1959 when responsibility for the administration of the Junior Public Examination was transferred from the University of Queensland to the Department of Education.
The Senior Public Examination 1965-1970
Furthermore, the results of the 1967 Physics paper varied greatly from the distribution approved by the board. As a result, the Board added one point to each grade and recommended to the Minister that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland make this adjustment. Professor George Bassett, Professor of Education at the University of Queensland, was appointed chairman and seven members of the board were also appointed to the committee.
The Radford Report
Initial reactions to the Radford Report
The Council of the Union endorsed the principles outlined in Radford's report, except for representation on the proposed Board of Secondary Studies. The union also made sure that the changes should not be introduced until the teachers were properly prepared. The representatives of the economy opposed the possible cancellation of the existing public external examination of knowledge.
In the introduced bill, some minor changes were made to the composition of the Board of Secondary Studies, as described in the Radford report. Opposition representatives welcomed the draft law and focused their criticism on problems related to the implementation of the report66. If these functions and powers are compared with those of the previous commissions, it appears that the Commission of Secondary Studies has been given a greater measure of autonomy.
The Department of Education was concerned that teachers should be informed as soon as possible of changes to be introduced through the implementation of the Radford report. However, what is new in the scheme is a need for re-examination of the areas of the syllabus in which student effort is to be evaluated. This type of examination grew out of the need to stage rehearsals for the Junior and the Senior.
This included regulations on the composition and functions of the Board of Secondary School Studies in accordance with the law.
The major characteristics of the period
Early stages of the Board of Secondary School Studies, 1971-1973
The board of directors has appointed a moderation committee that oversees the operation of the moderation system and advises the board on moderation structures and procedures. Appointed by the board for each of the 10 subject areas, the lead moderator was responsible to the board for all matters relating to his subject. The central component of the functioning of the moderation system was the district moderator meetings.
They were visited by panels of chief moderators or inspectors of schools acting as agents of the Council for the occasion71. This problem, which would remain with the Council for the next three years, was probably caused by the controversial nature of the work. Earlier, in 1972, the Council obtained the results of the Commonwealth Secondary Scholarship Examination for the Chief Moderators to assist them in their moderation procedures87.
While there was considerable criticism of the Board's assessment procedures, very few vocal critics called for a return to the external examination system. In a series of newspaper correspondences, public forums and lectures, the Board tried to overcome this aspect of the problem. The Board also noted some of the problems that were caused by factors external to the Board's evaluation machinery.
The board assured the University of Queensland that high exam standards would be maintained.
A critical period, 1974-1976
The dominance of the function of selection in the minds of students and parents - and teachers has created tension within the system. All tertiary institutions except the University of Queensland used the TE score in their entry requirements in 1974 and the University of Queensland began using it in 1975. This removed certain inequities and anomalies inherent in the University of Queensland system of using aggregates of grades over four semesters and thus reduced some of the unwanted pressure on schools and students.
This almost coincided with the introduction of TE Scores and it was the TE Score system that was singled out by some of the public as the barrier to entry into tertiary education. Campbell and colleagues at the Department of Education, University of Queensland, to conduct a comprehensive study of the educational effects of the changes that followed the implementation of the Radford Committee's report. As a result, school groups are now more educationally perfected than they were in 1970, and could perhaps be given greater autonomy with regard to the assessments they assign to their students.
However, it should be understood that these reports were based on data collected in 1974 and that by 1976 some of the more serious problems had been removed by changes introduced by the Board and the University of Queensland. The Union also continued to press for the elimination of the Junior Certificate and the abolition of moderation in class 11123. The moderation committee of the Board was considering several proposals for changes in moderation procedures.
A select committee, chaired by the council's Professor Ted Scott, examined the findings of the Campbell report and the report commissioned by the council itself, Schools Under Radford.
Efforts to improve or change the new system, 1976-1979
At the outset the Board claimed, with some justification, that changes made by the Board to the moderation system in 1974 had removed the source of some of the more serious criticism noted in Schools Under Radford and The Campbell Report . Comments and submissions on the Scott report from board committees and from outside organizations and educational institutions were taken into account when rewriting the report for final submission to the board. The final report of the Scott Committee, A Review of School-Based Assessment in Queensland Secondary Schools.
To assist in the maintenance of statewide performance standards and the maintenance of such standards over time, the spirit of paragraph 6.15 of the Radford Report should be endorsed. Initially, Competence Reference Tests may be limited to the Senior Secondary School with extension downwards to Year 10, depending on the subsequent advice of the Accreditation and Certification Committee (P26). For the purpose of determining the order of merit for entry to Tertiary Institutions, the Tertiary Admission Score should be retained, although the Council should continue its research into the effectiveness of the Tertiary Admission Score as a method of ranking students (P27).
At the request of the committee, he also recommended other additions and changes dictated by the committee's experience. He agreed in principle with the main points of the Scott report, including competency-based assessment, but preferred a different wording as the reporting format. The Honorable Mike Ahern (right) chaired the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, which approved the main points of the Scott report.
The implementation of the Scott Report phased moderation and standards-based system of numerical grading and accreditation of programs and performance-based assessment in and during the process met stiff resistance from the QTU.
Continuing operation of the moderation and the TE Score systems
Implementation of ROSBA
After the teachers' meetings in September, the schools will finalize the submissions to be submitted to the panels in the first week after the holidays. Panels will meet in the second week, allowing panels and schools to confer if necessary over the next three weeks. Schools submit their final proposals at the same time as the special subject assessments for their Year 12 students, i.e. by the last Thursday in November for most subjects and the Tuesday before for small groups.
In July 1982, the committee reported that while program writers had no difficulty in preparing objectives for their courses and sequencing the topics to be studied, there was still a widespread problem in the area of assessment, perhaps because teachers were not perceived as part of the work program. There also appeared to be a lack of information on the methods to be used to achieve the output levels of achievement153.
Response to ROSBA
Prior to 1964, the interests of the University of Queensland were paramount in the grading system. The Education Act of 1964 attempted to strike a balance between the interests of the university, modern curriculum designers, employers, parents and students. This culminated in the 1970 publication of the Radford Report, which proposed more radical solutions to the problems.
38 Report of the Committee Established to Consider the Board of Senior Secondary School Studies and Make Recommendations Concerning the Introduction of a Leaving Certificate (Bassett Report), August 1968, pp. 2-4, 38-9. 68 'Report of the Board of Secondary School Studies for 1973', Annual Report of the Minister of Education and Cultural Activities, 1973. 69 'Report of the Board of Secondary School Studies 1975', Annual Report of the Minister of Education and Cultural Activities, 1975 .
71 Report of the Board of Secondary School Studies, 1971, Annual Report of the Minister of Education and Cultural Activities, 1971. 99 Report of Senate of University of Queensland, 1971, in Report of the Minister of Education and Cultural Activities, 1971, p.63. Campbell et al., Sow Consequences of the Radford Scheme for Schools, Teachers and Students in Queensland, AACRE Report no.7, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra 1976.
133 'Report of the Board of Secondary Studies, 1976', in Annual Report of the Minister for Education and Cultural Activities, 1976.
