This elimination of Full Fee places is an absolute RUBBISH policy that will ultimately do nothing but strengthen Australias shortage of quality skilled people.
has not happened yet. so cant comment on it yet. and the shortage on skilled people isnt neccesarily to do with australia not having it...but employers may not be employing all the thousands of graduates into their respective industry of study. eg. shit loads of accounting majors yet there is still a supposed shortage.
High Grades DO NOT Automatically translate to success in life, and using a four digit number SOLELY to assess the suitability of an applicant for a particular course is not a good indicator as to the suitability of an applicant for a given industry. Just because someone achieves high marks, that doesn't that mean they are automatically suited to a particular line of work.
though it does mean that they have a greater potential to know what is going on if they study the course than a lesser quality and maybe lesser qualified in terms of studying. though there are already other measures such as umat, inteviews for engineering and some courses giving more points if you studied and did well in a particular subject in the hsc. so high grades still kinda are required.
There are legitimately skilled and committed individuals out there that may not perform well academically in a particular course for a number of reasons and that doesn't necessarily mean they are incapable of pursuing such and such course.
if they legititmately skilled doesnt this mean that if the field requires a qualification, they would need to attain it in the first place? and if they were to attain it through a degree...then doesnt this mean they would need to gain the initial grades into that degree to get that legitimate skill?
and if they were committed individuals they would somehow find a way to get that qualification for that job. and if they were capable to pursue that particular course, they would be on their way to attaining that particular qualification? :|
Instead of incurring an unnecessary sunk cost and wasting money to supposedlycompesnate Universities for the loss of Full Fee places, the money should instead be used to subsidise Universities to incorporate additional selection mechanisms to ensure Universities get the most suitable people for the Industry they are entering into (i.e. Interview, test etc, NOT JUST GPA/ENTER).
mechanisms are already either in progress or are in place as mentioned before. your example of an inteview is still flawed as this can be trained like the uai and will give other individuals who are good at interviews a greater than advantage. this would be very similar to the current hsc anyway.