Loading But I’d still say that exam results and scores do matter. And matter more than you may like to think. For all its critics and its supposed flaws, the HSC remains a good preparation for life. Yes, this does run counter to our contemporary sensibilities. Within much of the criticism of the HSC, there is the notion that true intellectual talent can’t ever measured by crude examinations. There is constant sniping at “over-coached” or “hot-housed” students. The implication is that some of those who score highly in the HSC are undeserving because they succeed through rote-learning, rather than because of their wits or any raw talent. Some of this may emanate from cultural anxiety. There’s a certain middle-class hostility towards state selective schools – one that frequently has racial undertones. Yet it may have deeper sources within our culture. We have in recent years been taken in by the myth of authenticity. When we see those who succeed in their field, we tend to attribute it to their natural gifts, not their hard graft.

The self-help industry lauds authenticity, as though “being yourself” is enough to guarantee career success. Human resources departments in many organisations now promote the idea of “bringing your whole self to work”. This is the three-card monte of late capitalism: your work may be casualised and made precarious, but you can at least bring to work your individuality. Success in something like the HSC almost invariably comes through preparation and application. Credit:Marina Neil Related to this is our growing impatience for things in life. Our culture is becoming defined by our desire for instant gratification. Our attention spans are shrinking. We want quick meals, quick fixes, and quick wins. We favour efficient mass-production over painstaking craftsmanship. The old-fashioned high school exam process is an antidote to these things. Success in something like the HSC almost invariably comes through preparation and application. Though there are always exceptions, raw smarts or genius is rarely ever enough to see you through. In other words, the system is an early lesson that talent alone is never enough. There is, embedded within it, an Aristotelian lesson about excellence being something that is cultivated through practice and habit.

Loading Of course, the HSC is far from perfect. We’d be crazy to rely on it alone to prepare people for life. One flaw with exams is they can create a false impression that our society is genuinely meritocratic. The truth is the HSC may be one of the very few tests of merit that will be relatively objective (academic exams in universities being another). Within much of the adult world, assessments of merit aren’t necessarily fair or transparent. Power and privilege often win the day. We may talk about merit, but who defines merit? And how is it defined? These are lessons in the “university of life” that lies beyond any HSC or even university curriculum. There’s another limit to exams. In their current form, they arguably do little to ensure students exit schooling with a proper education for citizenship.

Loading It’s true that many of the skills developed through the curriculum are relevant to citizenship. Good citizens should have the ability to consider the facts, weigh evidence, and present an argument – all of which are amply tested by exams. But must we do more to train our future citizens to live in an increasingly irrational and post-truth world? Must we do more to equip them to defend a democratic order that is being challenged from without and from within? Too often we think about the value of education only in terms of work and success. We’ve lost a sense of the civic or public value of education. But we shouldn’t understand a good education only to mean setting up students for a good job or career. Education means little if it doesn’t equip students to be good citizens, and to contribute to our society. Pity we can’t put an ATAR score on that. Tim Soutphommasane is a political theorist and professor at the University of Sydney.