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Foreword
In the course of editing submissions for our first book, Secondary School External Examination Systems: Reliability, Robustness and Resilience, it transpired that the university admission function of terminating school assessment has largely eclipsed the school-leaving certification aspect in systems where the two go together. But it is not only students from education systems which have curriculum-based external examinations at the culmination of schooling who aspire to enter university. Once the preserve of the well-heeled classes, university education has become to today's middle-class youngster what a high school certificate was to preceding generations at the same stage of life. Be it the demands of the ‘knowledge society’ or merely credential inflation, a great many young people now regard tertiary education as the means by which to realise their ambitions. Schooling has become a stepping-stone to post-school—increasingly, university—education and training. This edited volume accordingly focuses on the transition from school to university.
Securing the general right to enter university may only be a first step. Individual universities may impose their own entrance requirements,