In the last century, numbers of young people entering university studies has increased rapidly. The question has always been there of the assessment required for entry. Is the standard set by the Departments of Education or the universities?
The grade 12 exam in Australia has been the standard setter apart from university entrance tests. The question still remains as to whether of not grade 12 had the primary purpose of setting the university standards. Or should the university set their own entry tests?
The assessment up to the 1970s was based on norm-based assessment by which only the elite gained the top marks and top places in universities.
Then the system changed to criterion-referenced assessment by which students were required to achieve the required criterion standards. Far more students entered university by what became Outcome Based Education (OBE). Complaints were made that standards had dropped.
This had to be stopped. The OBE was slowly hijacked by the universities and turned into a research based program. The average students no longer succeeded as before. That was not the original purpose of Mastery Learning.
Universities are working to recover their elitism with only the above average to bright students doing well. OBE in Papua New Guinea has been elitized. But the standard has dropped in the process. The academics made research so impossible, they gave no time to teach the basics.
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