NSW Acting Minister for Education and Training, John Hatzistergos, today announced community consultation was now underway for proposed changes to the Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams and school assessments.

Mr Hatzistergos said a Background Paper and Course Proposals were available on the Board of Studies NSW website (www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au) along with a feedback form for comments.

'We welcome suggestions from teachers, students, parents, employers and educational groups on these proposals, which were flagged earlier this year', Mr Hatzistergos said.

'These proposals are designed to improve consistency between exams and give clearer advice on the number and scope of assessment tasks as well as more effectively managing the workload of students.

'The NSW HSC sets the gold standard in school credentials across the nation but like any benchmark it must be continually fine-tuned and improved to remain relevant.

'Most of these changes are minor and all are open to discussion.

'Most importantly, this is an opportunity to maintain the rigour and challenge for which the HSC is rightly lauded.'

The proposals, which if adopted would come into effect from 2010, include:

• incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time into exams instead of the current five minutes. This means notes might be made on separate sheets of paper during the planning time, allowing students to better structure their responses
• a consistent length of time for all HSC exams: three-hour exams for all 2 Unit courses and 1.5 hours for 1 Unit courses. For example, this could mean a single three-hour exam for the 2 Unit English courses, rather than two two-hour exams
• advice to help students judge an adequate length for some extended written responses, such as 'around four examination writing booklet pages' or 'around 600 words'. There would be no penalty for longer or shorter answers; each response would still be judged on its own merits
• changing the number of school assessment tasks from a range of 3-5 to a set number of four tasks per 2 Unit course and three tasks for 1 Unit courses. Presently, students at different schools can do either 15 tasks or 25 tasks for the same course, depending on their school's approach.

'One of the main reasons for giving students more advice on length of written responses and more planning time is that a growing number are writing excessively long and unstructured responses in exams," Mr Hatzisergos said.

'Last year, one student wrote 64 pages for a single essay question and essays of 20-30 pages are common. These answers often contain a lot of information that is not relevant to the question.

'More emphasis on quality over quantity and a compulsory 10-minute reading and planning time will help to address this issue in some courses', he said.

Mr Hatzistergos said the proposed changes had already been presented to a number of key groups of parent, teacher, principal and school system representatives. In addition, two forums had been held with government and non-government school principals.

"After finding a lot of support for the general changes during this pre-consultation period, the Board is satisfied that there is good reason to take the proposals to the wider community. The deadline for feedback is 17 October', he said.

'Apart from the chance to comment via the Board's website, there are plans in progress for face-to-face consultation with professional teacher organisations, groups of teachers, key HSC groups, parents and students.'

Feedback forms can be emailed to: information@bos.nsw.edu.au or faxed to (02) 9367 8484.