Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE)

As you may have guessed from the title, the abbreviation QCE stands for Queensland Certificate of Education and is a globally accredited body for preparing senior secondary year students for their tertiary degrees whether that be in Queensland, interstate or internationally.

QCE provides a breadth of subjects and courses for Queensland students to select so that they can gain admittance to preferred future studies or employment. It is vital to select subjects with care making sure all prerequisites of preferred study or work pathways are met.

The QCE cert lies under the regulation of Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA), a statutory body of the Queensland government. The QCE certificate is seen as evidence of your credibility and flexibility in learning a broad spectrum of subjects, showcasing your skills for a subsequent degree.

In other words, the QCE certification exemplifies that the senior secondary education model is not a one-size-fits-all type of learning curriculum but rather a model that can vary drastically based on the students desires and goals. Most students start thinking about their QCE subjects and course selection in the start of Year 10 and the end goal is to satisfactorily complete all the QCE requirements by the end of Year 12.

This senior pathway planning involves school teachers working in close conjunction with students and their parents to develop a Senior Education and Training (SET) plan. The SET plan is structured according to the interests, ambitions and learning needs of each student. It specifically highlights the student’s trajectory of education in years 11 and 12 and aims to guide them throughout their studies.

If you are looking for further guidance on how to plan your educational route during high school, our admission experts can provide complimentary feedback to help attain your goal with minimal efforts.

Upon the completion of your Year 12 school qualification, you receive an electronic Senior Educational Profile (SEP). The SEP is an official document issued by QCAA to certify your honest completion of Year 12, and that your certificates or educational achievements have not been altered.

The primary objective of QCE is to provide a range of learning opportunities for students that can supplement their career goals and ambitions in the long run. Therefore, QCE puts forth a list of eligibility requirements to determine a student’s success rate for receiving the QCE award.

Let us look into some of the baseline requirements for students to get their QCEs:

1. Create an open learning account through my QCE portal
2. Must not have been issued with a QCE or equivalent
3. Acquire at least one credit from the courses in Core Category of Learning during their tenure at a Queensland secondary school

Once you are in the clear with these basic requirements, it is essential that you start looking into the big picture - the foundational requirements that are key to receiving your final QCE certification.

1. Set Amount of Learning

Students must complete at least 20 credits from the provided learning options which include:

• QCAA approved subjects or courses
• Vocational training and educational qualifications
• Other recognised non-Queensland studies (including interstate or international qualifications)

2. Acquired grade that is up to the set standard of QCE

To count towards the QCE, each subject or course must be completed at the required standard. This typically means:

• A grade of C or higher in general or applied subjects
• Completion of qualification or certificate requirements

3. Set Pattern of Course Completion

The 20 credits that build up a complete course must include:

• 12 credits from complete core courses of study
• 8 credits from any combination of:
  • Up to 4 Preparatory courses
  • Core courses
  • Maximum of 8 Complementary courses

4. Literacy and Numeracy Prerequisite

QCE, similar to the HSC educational qualification present in NSW, requests students to achieve a defined standard in one literacy and one numeracy learning option.

Here are some potential learning options available for you to choose from and decide which of the units can best suit your future interests:

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Students can ear credits in the QCE through achievements in different kinds f learning options. The value of the credits awarded depends on meeting both the set standards and having completed the ‘set amount of learning’. A student is expected to have at least 20 credits to achieve the QCE qualification.

1. Internal Assessments

The newly designed QCE system generates students’ results for General subjects and Applied Subjects differently.

For General Subjects, the results are derived based on students’ performance in three internal assessment tasks and one external assessment.

Internal assessments constitute 75% of a student’s final course result in most subjects except for Mathematics and Science units where only 50% of the internal assessment grades are contributed to derive the final score.It is important to note that during the calculation of a student’s total subject results, the internal assessment results are not scaled by external assessment results.

Queensland schools have sole ownership of developing internal assessments according to the courses’ framework.They hence provide students with a ‘rubric’ that includes the:

• Type of assessment
• Conditions of administering the assessment
• Marking scheme of the assessment

Once students have completed the assessment, the school teachers are responsible for marking the assessments using an instrument-specific marking guide (ISMG) provided in the course syllabus.

QCAA registered assessors declare the internal assessment parameters or instruments before they are deployed in the classroom. The purpose of endorsements is to ensure that all assessments are of high-quality and provide reasonable opportunities for students to demonstrate the ‘rubric’ effectively.

For Applied Subjects, on the other hand, there are four internal assessments to gauge a student’s overall achievement.

Applied subjects include:

• Essential English
• Essential Mathematics

These subjects require endorsement by QCAA and the fourth internal assessment is a common internal assessment created by the QCAA.

1. External Assessments

The QCE system measures a student’s performance on three internal and one external assessment. This method of testing is”

• Commonly practised in all schools
• Administered at the same time, on the same day and under similar circumstances
• Marked by the QCAA

A student’s external assessment performance in General Mathematics and Science subjects contributes 50% to their final scores whereas in all other General subjects, the external assessment constitutes only 25% of the total score.

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Each year Queensland teachers, QCAA staff members and Academics assemble to develop examination papers for the over 70 subjects available. The development of these exams begins with an ‘Assessment proposal’ for individual subjects, which is then cross-checked against the QCAA syllabus.

The writing team is then responsible for developing exam questions, the marking scheme and drafting the official question papers for students. In order to ensure that the exam papers are of high-standard, subject experts are asked to undertake examinations and provide feedback to improve the quality of testing by making necessary edits within the exam papers.

After several rounds of editing and checking, the exam papers are delivered to Queensland schools where students are given equitable opportunities to showcase their learnings to the best of their ability in specific subject matters.

The stage after QCE exam completion is crucial as your QCE results are the ultimate determinants of whether or not you qualify for a QCE award and the following endeavours.

For starters, the exam papers are collected from students and then scanned through a machine for marking purposes.  Approximately 3,000 qualified and trusted Queensland teachers grade students’ assessments online and it takes an entire month to complete marking all subjects units.

The markers or the teachers receive intensive training from the QCAA to carry out accurate and reliable marking operations for each student. Each marker’s performance is monitored by the QCAA to ensure that their marking is consistent with the marking guidelines designed by QCAA itself.

The Queensland schools share the same goal as other Australian state schools when it comes to preparing students for a demanding tertiary education.

Particularly, in Years 11 and 12, students require that extra push and training to be suited for the external assessments generated by the QCAA. Hence, teachers within each Queensland school tailor students' knowledge and skills according to the subject matter in the syllabus.

The QCAA, on the flip side assess students’ foundation in every single subject that is part of Units 3 and or Unit 4 of the syllabus. Considering the fact that the external assessments are quite tricky and require a streamlined approach of preparation, the QCAA has developed some sample papers for more than 50 subjects. These sample papers:

1. Allow schools to interpret how the syllabus and individual subjects are assessed year after year.
2. Ensure students and parents alike have an opportunity to see a sample of QCE past papers before sitting external assessments for an academic year.
3. Provide schools an opportunity to foresee some, or all of the QCE trial exams as practice tests once students complete the relevant subject matter.

But then, how are these QCE sample papers useful to students?

The QCAA developed sample papers are beneficial during your preparation because they are specifically designed to help you maximise your performance through practice and exposure. It is important to take full advantage of these free resources and study material that can help you revise and improve your subject knowledge in a coherent method.

Finally, adapting to an external assessment process builds confidence in your abilities and this confidence can come in hand when you sit the UCAT exam in the near future for getting into medicine.

The Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank, also known as the ATAR is a primary metric used during the tertiary admissions process to determine competent fresh school leavers who have what it takes to be in a university-level of education.

The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC) calculates your ATAR to indicate your academic position in relation to other students in your cohort statewide. For example, the highest ATAR achievable is 99.95 which directly means that the students academic performance is in the top 0.05% of the state in that academic year.

Let us establish how your QCE subject selection affects to your final ATAR calculation. The ATAR is derived from the final results you achieve in Units 3 and 4 during your Year 12. These include:

1. 5 General Subjects; Or
2. 4 General Subjects + 1 Applied Subject or a completed VET qualification at Certificate 3 or higher
3. Achieve a grade of C or above in one of the five QCAA English subjects - English, English Essential, Literature, English and Literature Extension or English as an Additional Language.

The 2025 external assessment dates have been released on the QCAA official website. For General and General (Extended) subject units, the exams will be held from Monday 27 October to Tuesday 18 November 2025.

A full-fledged exam timetable will be released in the mid of Term 2 for all students.

For further information and queries on sitting the UCAT, visit our website to access Free resources and tools that can help shape your understanding of what the UCAT entails.

We hope that you now have a solid understanding of the QCE. Our guides are focused on providing a diverse and informative perspective to different topics that concern your medical degree.

We have also accumulated other useful information that can improve your understanding towards the medicine admission process and the medical interview:

1. What is GEMSAS?
2. What happens if you fail your medical school interview?
3. Using the STAR framework in medical interview response?
4. What is the daily routine of a medical student?
5. Medical school interviews during COVID.

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