Exporting Curriculum - SSABSA Plays it again with S•A•M

  Jan Keightley

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In our brave new globalised society, educational qualifications must be as widely marketable as any other commodity. Students aiming for university degrees need entry credentials that will be competitive anywhere in the world, while teachers of internationally respected curriculum know their career skills are eminently portable.

In Malaysia, where degrees from English-speaking universities are desperately sought, there is a one-year pre-university matriculation program that thousands of students have chosen as their ticket to universities the world over. There it is known simply and acronymously as 'SAM'. Here in South Australia we call it the SACE.

Since the early 1980s, the South Australian Matriculation program has been administered in south-east Asia by the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia. In that time, over 20,000 students have completed the SAM and many have been accepted by universities in the United Kingdom, America, New Zealand and India - as well as Australia, the destination for around 60% of the cohort. By encouraging Malaysian students into Australia, SSABSA is contributing to the export economy, and the name SAM throws the spotlight on those first two letters - SA, the source of world-class curriculum and assessment services.

Around a thousand students take the SAM each year, mainly through Taylors College in Kuala Lumpur and Kolej Disted-Stamford in Penang. Of last year's 988 students, 49 attained one or more merit - the maximum possible subject achievement score. Subjects offered are English as Second Language Studies and English Studies, (at least one of which is essential), Chinese (at specialist level), Economics, Legal Studies, Malay (specialist level), Modern History (Asia), Accounting Studies, Biology, Chemistry, Information Technology Studies, Mathematics 1, Mathematics 2 and Physics.

"The ESL is rigorous," says Antonio Mercurio, SSABSA's Curriculum Manager whose involvement with the SAM in Malaysia goes back more than a decade, "because the main objective is to prepare students for success in English-speaking universities." Apart from that, studying in 'KL' and Penang is the same as taking SACE Year 12 in Norwood, Elizabeth or Mount Barker.

"Absolutely, they are doing the SACE," Antonio emphasises, "but over there it will always be known as the SAM. That name has gained such a reputation over the years that we couldn't change it if we wanted to!"

For the first time, last year's overseas students were able to view their results and check their Tertiary Entrance Rank on the internet, symbolically shrinking the global education community still further. Apart from electronic communication, SSABSA officers consult offshore twice yearly. Either Antonio or Assessment Manager Mostyn Coleman attends mid-year, offering professional development to local teaching staff, possibly implementing a new course with the help of a specialist Curriculum and Assessment Officer, or looking for new SAM schools. Another visit is essential at exam time, to oversee invigilation, and most importantly to guarantee security of the exam papers.

"They are exactly the same exams that students are sitting in Adelaide, and they sit them at exactly the same time." Says Antonio, adding "The only difference might be that it's pitch dark!" As SA students sit for their morning exams, their Malaysian counterparts are finding their way to the exam room in the 7am darkness. Otherwise, everything is identical - SSABSA's rigorous moderation and assessment practices ensure equitable determination of scores and the all-important TER. Upon return to these shores for marking, the SAM exam papers are randomised along with local ones, to eliminate any possibility of bias.

Blank exam stationery and then the papers themselves are air-freighted directly to the colleges where they may only be opened at the appropriate time by the Malaysian equivalents of our SACE Coordinators. Antonio Mercurio explains: "We used to store them in the High Commissioner's office and dispatch them from there" - not for reasons of diplomatic immunity, but because exams used to take place in five schools prior to a recent round of amalgamations, which saw the number reduced to the present two major colleges (and security issues simplified accordingly). SSABSA also supplies secure containers for the papers' express-freight journey to Adelaide.

Mostyn Coleman says "Since the development of the Australian Tertiary Entrance Ranking, the national comparability of Australian university entrance scores is assured". He points to recent investigations by Australasian curriculum and assessment authorities into the international comparability of this country's senior secondary certificates, and adds "The Australian Vice Chancellors Committee is establishing academic links agreements with overseas universities. These will stipulate senior secondary qualifications required for entry into undergraduate programs".

Already, the South Australian Matriculation, whether you call it SAM or SACE, can gain entry to such luminary universities as Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Michigan State, Tokyo, Kyoto and many more. In some cases such as Edinburgh, an otherwise mandatory language proficiency test may be waived for holders of the SAM. Students here in Adelaide are running alongside their overseas 'global classmates' in the race for those precious places.

Global logistics such as the SAM operation are a familiar part of SSABSA's annual assessment operations, and by no means the most complicated. The Authority has run exams for individual distanced students in exotic locations such as prison, on the high seas - and in the Northern Territory, where SSABSA provides assessment services to the NT Board of Studies.

It is another pointer to our shrinking globe that a sheep station 400 kilometres from Alice Springs seems much more remote as an exam venue than Kuala Lumpur.

Dr. Janet Keightley is Chief Executive of SSABSA