HSC Economics


The Higher School Certificate Economics course is a 2-unit elective course undertaken by students in New South Wales across their final 2 years of schooling. The course includes a preliminary program for study across 3 terms of Year 11, and an HSC course for study over 4 terms of Year 12. In 2012, 5,262 students sat the HSC Economics external examination, with 12.5% receiving the top performance indicator of a Band 6. The course aims to take a "problems and issues approach" to the teaching and learning of economics, with a particular emphasis on the economic problems and issues experienced by individuals and society.
The key issues of the HSC Economics syllabus are:
The focus of the Preliminary course is on the practical problems and issues that affect individuals, firms and governments, whilst also introducing core microeconomic and macroeconomic principles to students. The content of the Preliminary Course includes the topics:
In the HSC course, the problems and issues are studied in relation to the national, regional and global economies, and are in a much higher level of depth. The HSC course consists of four topics. Also included in Topic 1 is a case study of an economy other than Australia, and the impact of globalisation on that economy, along with economic policies used. The most popular topics for this case study are China, Indonesia, and Brazil.
The four topics studied in the HSC course are:
The HSC examination allows 3 hours and encompasses the following items:
Three textbooks are updated and published annually, each covering the current 2009 Economics syllabus for the HSC programme: