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The Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) is the certificate awarded to students completing their secondary schooling in Queensland. The QCE was introduced in 2008, to replace the Senior Certificate. It is currently issued by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA).

To be awarded a QCE you must complete a minimum of 20 credit points from a combination of courses including:

• core—the senior school subjects most students study
• preparatory—can include vocational education and training (VET) courses
• enrichment—courses that develop high level skills and knowledge in a specific area
• advanced—can include university courses and diploma or advance diploma programs.

Students are assessed based upon the subjects which they undertake. A student’s final grade is given as a Level of Achievement, of which there are five grades:

• Very High Achievement (VHA), roughly equivalent to an “A”
• High Achievement (HA), roughly equivalent to a “B”
• Sound Achievement (SA), roughly equivalent to a “C”
• Limited Achievement (LA), roughly equivalent to a “D”
• Very Limited Achievement (VLA), roughly equivalent to an “E”

Each of these achievement levels are split into 10 rungs, to further differentiate the achievement of individual students. A VHA10 is the highest mark a student can achieve for a subject and a VLA1 is the lowest.[5] These marks, along with the weighting of subjects (determined by students’ academic performance in the Queensland Core Skills Test) is responsible in determining a students Overall Position

The Overall Position (OP) was a tertiary entrance rank used in the Australian state of Queensland for selection into universities. Like similar systems used throughout the rest of Australia, the OP shows how well a student has performed in their senior secondary studies compared with all other OP-eligible students in Queensland. 

The OP is calculated and used similarly to the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) in other states. Instead of being a percentile rank (0.00 – 99.95), however, OPs are measured on a scale from 1 to 25, where 1 is the highest and 25 is the lowest. This range of possible results is bell curved so the percentage of students receiving the very highest and very lowest results is much less common than those receiving mid-range OPs.

Did you know? Brisbane was known to the early Aboriginal people as Meanjin, which means “place shaped like a spike”. Brisbane is a thriving multicultural hub with a population of 2.27 million, making it the third-largest city in Australia. In 2013, the city got 283 days of full sunlight!

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