Students had been advised to "buckle down" and study harder on this day in 1992, after the minister of education announced the ACT government would be stricter on students wishing to repeat Year 12.
There had been a large increase in students wanting to do an extra year at school to increase their chances of getting into TAFE or university.
Advertisement
Education minister Bill Wood said the government could not afford the $2 million cost of teenagers repeating a year at school, as it was often not worth it and students received little educational benefit from the extra year.
Mr Wood said many students who did repeat and do "Year 13" did not actually improve their Year 12 results, and some actually did worse.
The previous year there had been 253 repeating students. Of these students, only 188 received their Year 12 certificate.
Mr Wood gave a "polite warning" to students who were already thinking about taking a repeat year, and asked them to "please think again".
"It's depressing to hear only halfway through the year that some students have already slackened their efforts and are looking for an extra year to redeem their situation," he said.
"Some students have decided their tertiary ranking this year will not be good enough for the course they want."
Mr Wood said there would be "different" arrangements the next year, but did not say how.
