Батыс Австралияның білім беру жүйесі және WACE аттестаты

School qualification offered in Western Australia
the Western Australian education credential

The Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) is the credential awarded to students who have completed senior secondary education (Year 11 and Year 12) in the state of Western Australia. It is the Western Australian graduation certificate of the Australian Senior Secondary Certificate of Education. Students are required to meet various breadth and depth requirements, achievement standards and literacy and numeracy standards across their final years of schooling. As of the 2020 WACE, there are 106 courses available for students to study. Many WACE students are awarded an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), summarising their results across all areas of study into one ranking for the purposes of university admission. Students may choose from ATAR courses, which count directly towards their ATAR, Vocational Education and Training courses, which are more practical courses and can lead to further vocational opportunities, and, from 2021, General courses, which provide pathways to university, employment, or further vocational education and training. From 2010, the WACE replaced the Tertiary Entrance Exam (TEE), as the standard academic examination for school leavers in Western Australia.

As of 2020, for students to attain the WACE, they must meet requirements in breadth and depth of study, minimum achievement standards, and minimum literacy and numeracy standards. To meet the breadth and depth requirements, students must study at least 20 units, including 10 units of Year 12 courses; four units of English at a post Year 10 level (i. e. across years 11 and 12), including a pair of units at Year 12 level; and a pair of Year 12 units from both List A, which consists of humanities subjects and List B, made up of STEM subjects. Subjects generally have four units studied across two years. Units 1 and 2 are generally studied in Year 11, and units 3 and 4 are generally studied in Year 12.

The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is a ranking awarded to most students achieving a Senior Secondary Certificate of Education in each state and territory of Australia, except Queensland until the 2020 21 admission cycle, for the purposes of university admission. The Tertiary Institutions Service Centre (TISC) calculates and awards the ATAR in Western Australia. It is a rank relative to all other school leaving aged people in Western Australia from 99.95 to 0.00. It represents the percentage of school leaving aged people in Western Australia that a student has achieved at an equal or higher standard, including those who do not sit the WACE or an equivalent school leaving certificate. For example, an ATAR of 70.00 means that a student has achieved at an equal or better level than 70% of all school leaving aged people in the state. The ATAR is calculated using the Tertiary Entrance Aggregate (TEA). Each student's results in each subject are standardised and scaled using each student's results in other courses to reflect the overall achievement of each student in each subject. The TEA is the sum of each student's best four scaled marks, plus 10% of the mark in any of the following subjects:

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority publishes yearly rankings of the top performing schools in that year's WACE. From 2012 to 2015, SCSA reported rankings in terms of percentage of marks of 75 or higher in WACE stage 3 courses. From 2016 onwards, SCSA has reported rankings in terms of each school's median ATAR. Since moving to this new format, Perth Modern School was ranked the top achieving school in the WACE for the four years from 2016 to 2019. In terms of meeting requirements for the WACE, the two categories function in different ways. For the achievement standards requirement, successful completion of an industry specific course is considered equivalent to a C grade or higher result in a WACE course, whereas credit transfer courses reduce the number of C grades a student must achieve. Neither category of course contributes to the breadth of study requirements. Both courses contribute to the depth of study requirements. Industry specific courses count directly towards the depth requirements, whilst credit transfer courses are considered "unit equivalence" of regular WACE courses. Students can only count 8 credit transfer units towards the standards and depth requirements, there are no such limits for industry specific courses. the WACE was reformed. It changed from a fragmented system with three types of curriculum: externally assessed TEE, Wholly School Assessed, and VET components, to a single curriculum combining these three components. The curriculum was simplified, from hundreds of courses down to around fifty, so that by 2010, the new WACE standard of examinations had replaced the former TEE standard. the WACE examinations that replaced the TEE are compulsory for all students, unless exempt.

As the number of students studying VET courses doubled to sixty percent of the student cohort in the ten years to 2016 the VET component of the WACE will be reformed for Year 11 students from 2020 and Year 12 students from 2021 who can study General courses. The General course pathway can lead to university, employment, or further vocational education and training. The Western Australian Minister for Education and Training, Sue Ellery, described the changes as offering a pathway in between the existing ATAR/university and VET options: In the past you chose ATAR courses if you wanted to go to university and VET courses if you wanted to link into training and this middle ground gives students an option for both". All other WACE requirements will remain the same.

The WACE is also available overseas in South East Asia. This offers an affordable option for international students who would otherwise not have the opportunity take this exam in Australia. Exams are invigilated and moderated by SCSA. In Singapore, the WACE program is offered at St Francis Methodist School. In Malaysia, the WACE is offered under the name of Australian Matriculation, or AUSMAT, and offers Malaysian students a study pathway recognised in Malaysia and across the globe. It is also offered at Mita International School in Tokyo, Japan from 2021.