By the end of this week, year 12 students from Victoria and NSW will have received their official examination results. As they begin to make decisions about their futures, whether that involves university, vocational pathways or entering the workforce, the conversation too often narrows to a single number; the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, or ATAR.

Yet education, opportunity and potential are far more complex than that. As our landscape shifts and young people explore increasingly diverse routes into meaningful careers, it’s worth asking whether the systems we rely on to measure success still serve them.

One number – the ATAR – consumes students and parents.Credit: stock.adobe.com

For many families, this period is a reminder of how dramatically the post-school environment has changed in the past decade, with new industries, new modes of learning, and new expectations emerging at a rapid pace.

Year 12 students receive an ATAR score. An ATAR of 80 means you performed better than 80 per cent of your cohort. Australia stands alone as the only country among 251 countries and territories that use percentile rankings to compare students against one another.

While the Australian government continues to insist that graduating high school with an ATAR is the best preparation for university, students and their parents are turning their........

© The Sydney Morning Herald