All public school juniors in Hawaii will take the ACT college entrance exam this spring in an effort to boost college-going rates and better gauge student preparedness for life after high school.

At least 12 states already require 11th-graders to take the test.

The ACT will be part of a suite of college- and career-readiness assessments that middle and high school students in Hawaii will undergo, the Department of Education announced Wednesday.

Beginning in April, students in eighth and ninth grades will take the ACT PLAN test, 10th-graders will take the EXPLORE exam and 11th-graders will take the ACT.

Altogether, 50,000 Hawaii students will take one of the ACT paper-and-pencil tests annually.

Offering the tests will cost the state $882,000 in the 2012-13 school year.

The tests are aimed at gauging student proficiency in reading, math, science and English.

In addition to information on how they performed, students will get detailed feedback on what concepts they need to work on and which careers they might be suited for given their stated interests.

Teri Ushijima, complex area superintendent for Aiea, Moanalua and Radford, who has spearheaded the department’s effort to implement the ACT suite of tests, said schools will be able to use the assessment data to steer students to particular classes, beef up curricula in areas where students are struggling and even to decide if any key concepts need to be re-taught.

"The ACT is more than a test," Ushijima said. "It’s a tool that students can use to assess themselves along the way."

She added, "We’re trying to do everything we can to bump up the college-going rate."

Of the 10,805 seniors who graduated from Hawaii public schools in 2011, 53 percent enrolled in a two- or four-year college.

The DOE said the ACT "College and Career Readiness System" incorporates the expectations of post-secondary institutions and the workforce.

"We are setting a high bar for achievement and delivering optimal tools and resources to accelerate our students’ trajectory toward college and career readiness," schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi said in a news release. "All high school graduates must complete a rigorous course of study and be prepared to successfully pursue their dreams, aspirations and goals."

The ACT exam given to juniors at no cost to them can be used for entrance to most colleges, including the University of Hawaii.

Currently, students must pay for college entrance exams — either the ACT or its more popular rival, the SAT.

About 27 percent of Hawaii’s class of 2012 took the ACT. Information on participation among public school students only was not available.

By comparison, 66 percent of all Hawaii students took the SAT; 56 percent of public school students in the class of 2012 took the test.

The ACT test will be taken in 2013 on top of other standardized tests already administered to students.

Those include the Hawaii State Assessment, which students in third through eighth and 10th grade take to demonstrate proficiency in reading and math. Also for the first time this school year, Hawaii high school students in expository writing, biology, U.S. history and beginning albegra classes will take standardized end-of-course exams to show their mastery of the subjects.