WA’s Education Minister has poured cold water over a Perth school’s plan to pay Year 12 students cash incentives to work harder although she acknowledges schools are in a tricky position motivating students because of early offers from universities.

Carine Senior High School told Year 12 students this week they would receive $500 cash if their final ATAR mark was an improvement on their Year 11 predicated result.

But Sue Ellery has ruled out the incentives telling Gareth Parker on Mornings ‘we don’t pay students to do their school work’.

“I think it was well intentioned… but it is not going to proceed,” she said.

“There is an issue, universities obviously are really keen to get as many students as they can next year because they’ve lost international students due to the pandemic and so they’re offering early offers to students based on their Year 11 results.

“And there is a concern amongst senior secondary educators that that might mean for some kids they’ll take their foot off the pedal and just think they can cruise through Year 12.

“There’s a much bigger picture here because it’s not just about getting into university, it’s succeeding when you get to university.

“I think there are other ways of dealing with this so that students understand all of the work that they do in Year 12 is not just about the content, it’s about learning how to study, learning how you organise how you study, and they’ll need those skills if they’re going to be successful at university.”

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