The trial General Achievement Test (GAT) for Year 12 students is to be rescheduled to keep Victorian students, teachers and broader school communities safe from COVID-19.
Minister for Education, James Merlino said due to ongoing community transmission in Melbourne, the Department of Health’s public health team recommended the GAT be rescheduled to reduce the risk of a further outbreak from large cohorts of students gathering to take the test.
“A new date will be determined in the coming days to give schools and students certainty that the rescheduled test will be safe to go ahead,” Mr Merlino said.
“On the rescheduled date, students who are in quarantine as positive coronavirus cases or Primary Close Contacts, as well as schools deemed exposure sites, will receive an exemption from the GAT,” he said.
“This will not disadvantage students’ results and will be taken into account with the Consideration of Educational Disadvantage (CED) process.”
Mr Merlino said that, in a normal year, individual students were assessed for special consideration on a case-by-case basis but this year the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority would use the CED process to finalise VCE results for every student.
The Minister said the process considered a range of data alongside exam results to calculate final VCE results, including the GAT; comparisons of performance across all assessments and schools; and other learning data.
“The process will also include assessments of the individual impact of coronavirus on each student including school closures, direct impacts on students’ health, ongoing issues with remote learning and mental health challenges,” Mr Merlino said.
