School leavers left reeling after human error resulted in a miscalculation of their university entrance scores

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Tasmanian year 12 students who were left reeling after human error resulted in a miscalculation of their university entrance scores have been sent an updated Atar.

The state’s education minister, Jeremy Rockliff, has ordered an audit to determine how the Atar scores were incorrectly calculated.

“I understand this error will have been upsetting for some students and I’d like to reassure them that their tertiary admissions will not be impacted,” he said.

“I have instructed the secretary of the Department of Education to initiate an independent audit to understand how Atar scores were incorrectly calculated in order to prevent such an incident happening again.”

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The Office of Tasmanian Assessment, Standards and Certification and the University of Tasmania have tested and validated the updated results.

Rockliff said the department had fixed the issue within the same day and university admission processes nationally and internationally were now using the correct data.

There were errors in the scoring of some subjects offered to students through high achiever and university connection programs.

The maximum score for Asian studies fell from 26 last year to 18 this year.

One student, Yasmine Wright Gittins, told the ABC she feared she might be overlooked for a university scholarship because of the reduction in her score.

“We were all shocked and pretty emotionally distraught over it,” she said. “A lot of people were quite reliant on the marks they needed to receive from that subject.”