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Students' exam fees to be cut

EXAM fees are to be halved for secondary students in 2005 and they will then pay a flat fee of $75 per student and $75 for each scholarship subject over three entered.

This represents a substantial reduction in fees for more than 70 percent of domestic students.

For the remaining students, they either paid this lower level of fee last year so their fee is unchanged, or they received fee remission for hardship so they only paid $20 or $30 per family.

Last year, under a two-tiered structure, students who achieved more than 49 credits including up to 3 scholarship subjects paid $150, and those under 49 credits paid $75.

Support for larger and low income families is also still available. The most a large, low-income family will have to pay for all of their children to enter is $30.

International students do not receive this level of taxpayer-funded subsidy. For the majority of around 6000 international students, fees will drop from $400 to $375. For about 500 international students, the fees will increase from $200 to $375. These changes have been made in order to introduce the flat fee structure.