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Paul Martin, chief executive of NESA, the body responsible for the state’s syllabus, says the publication of HSC results is an essential part of the education system.
NSW Education Standards Authority chief executive Paul Martin.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
The media is currently allowed to publish only the top school performers, in the HSC for example, following legislation passed following a now-infamous 1997 Daily Telegraph front page that reported on the bottom class in the state with the words “THE CLASS WE FAILED”.
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“I do not believe it’s reasonable to collect this data for it to be only available (on) a confidential basis to academics, public policy specialists and research who are deemed to have the best interest of education,” he says. “I think this data has to be public, to some degree.
“It is not tenable to have to no common academic view of student performance … It’s about how and what we produce and how carefully it’s disseminated.”
But he’s warning against wholesale league tables which rank things like wellbeing.
“If you rank, there is always a last place and that’s the problem.”
