How else do you suggest they do it? It's way better than taking ranks as ranks don't account for difficulty of subject and strength of cohort for that subject. ATAR at least aligns and scales.
I was being sarcastic lol
And I thought taking ATAR was the universal system for getting dux, looks like I was wrong. Such an interesting array of weird and wonderful methods haha.
Overall ATAR takes EVERYTHING into account, difficulty of each subject, scaling etc, and so in my opinion it is the best method for choosing a dux. 1 person hospitality classes etc dont end up screwing things up.
Speaking of 1 person hospitality classes etc, my school is so discriminatory its actually hilarious, but not like race etc I mean academically, eg we used to have a yr 7-12 system where the person with the highest ranks for all subjects gets an Öutstanding student"award, male and female, but then all of a sudden they abolished it for yr 11 and 12, and I asked my principal why and he's like all quiet and whispers to me "Well we found that there were kids who were doing TAFE courses etc and were the only people in their class, and really, its silly to make them the most outstanding student when we have obviously far more academically capable students in your grade."
HAHA omg I was laughing so hard for the rest of that day
And realise, are you talking about publishing ATAR's when they come out?