Education Minister Erica Stanford joins Ryan Bridge on Herald NOW to discuss the proposed end to NCEA and what will replace it.
Opinion by Jamie Beaton
Jamie Beaton is the co-founder CEO of Crimson Education
THE FACTS
Education Minister Erica Stanford has announced plans to scrap NCEA, replacing it with new certificates from 2028.
The reforms aim to address “credit counting” by introducing foundational literacy and numeracy tests.
Concerns include increased pressure on students and loss of flexibility in subject choices.
For too long, New Zealand’s education system has been content to drift in a sea of mediocrity. Everyone has known for a long time that NCEA is broken. Thirteen years ago, when I finished high school, it was widely recognised among my peers that the system was tooeasy, gameable, and a disservice to our students.
The basic hallmarks of a good education system are: 1) standardisation, so grades are meaningful and comparable nationwide; 2) world-class benchmarking, to ensure if a Kiwi excels in our schools, they can compete globally; and 3) robust assessment.
Across New Zealand, some NCEA students use ChatGPT to generate many of their assignments, internals and homework, often able to pass entire years while skipping exams. In the artificial intelligence (AI) era, we need rigorous in-person exams to assess true competency.
Cambridge University recently moved back to pen and paper, in-person exams - specifically for this reason. The era of a “high stakes” take-home assessment is gone.
Obviously, we need to foster curiosity, a love of learning, intellectual debate, and free inquiry. However, a system that breeds curiosity and one that has rigorous examinations aren’t contradictory. In fact, when students are deeply engaged in school, their ability to be curious in class is far higher.
NCEA students arriving at university to study medicine are often two years behind their peers with Cambridge A Levels or International Baccalaureate. This isn’t fair on them. A student shouldn’t have to perform backflips outside of their national school curriculum just to get to par with other systems.
Global universities are unfamiliar with NCEA’s obscure grading system, which doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. For most people and employers, looking at an NCEA transcript is an exercise in deciphering hieroglyphics.
In my work with Crimson Education, I’ve witnessed countless brilliant New Zealand students struggle to gain admission to elite universities not because they lack talent, but because NCEA hasn’t equipped them with the academic rigour required. When you compare NCEA to the International Baccalaureate or Cambridge A Levels, the gap is stark and sobering.
I have been surprised to see issues like testing and rigour become political footballs. They can’t be - and any team that wants to try to advocate for inward-facing mediocrity will always lose in the long run. The need for Kiwis to be able to win on the world stage with an education system that matches our ambition is critical. We cannot look inward and pat ourselves on the back as the world relentlessly marches forward without us.
NCEA has fostered a culture where gaming the system for credits became more valuable than genuine intellectual development. Students learned to navigate internals rather than master subjects. The fragmented nature of NCEA has created a system where a student’s achievement depends more on their school’s standards than their actual capability. Top performing schools are often those that mastered helping their students optimise the NCEA internal system and re-submitting work, not those driving truly world-class education.
Why competition and rigour aren’t dirty words
The proposed changes, with the introduction of the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) for Year 12 and 13, and a ‘Foundational Skills Award’ for Year 11, are a step in the right direction.
The emphasis on literacy and numeracy in Year 11, and the requirement to take five subjects and pass at least four, signals a return to a more structured and demanding approach. And the “out of 100″ marking system, alongside letter grades, will bring a much-needed transparency and comparability that NCEA lacked.
We need grading systems to be foolproof. There are many questions to be asked but a national acknowledgement that it is time to level-up our education system is necessary and welcomed.
Building a world-class system
The notion that a “chill”, uncompetitive educational culture benefits students is a dangerous delusion. It breeds complacency and false achievement. Students go to school disengaged, knowing that they can get through the year without much work. They don’t need to pay attention in class. Local universities that have a public mandate to be accessible have to dilute their admission standards.
We cannot have our students wasting years of their life going through school, disengaged with the lifelong importance of learning, upskilling, and preparing for an exciting future.
Through Crimson, I see education systems and work with students across Singapore, Korea, the USA, the United Kingdom and many other countries every day.
When ChatGPT can get you through a year of school, the classroom becomes a joke in the short term and an obstacle to our children’s future in the long term. Conversely, when the standards of education are high, students respect the education process.
True equity means ensuring that if a student chooses the New Zealand curriculum, and they throw everything they’ve got at their education, there is no door in the world that isn’t open to them.
The global AI race for the future
As AI reshapes our economy, accelerates disruptive trends, and provides highly-trained people with more leverage than ever before, we need Kiwis able to step into this revolution.
New Zealand cannot afford citizens who are intellectually under-equipped by their curriculum and a weak education system. Our students must be able to consistently compete and win against the best minds from Asia, Europe, and North America. They need qualifications that open doors to amazing universities, including offshore ones like Harvard, Oxford, or MIT, if they want to.
The Widener Library at Harvard University. Photo / Getty
Our students deserve a genuine path to acquiring the technical skills necessary to work at the foremost AI learning labs in the world, like OpenAI. We need a system that produces greatness.
Today, we have many brilliant Kiwis coming through our education system, but their rise has been in spite of the system, not because of it.
We can build a system where a child from Northland has the same opportunity to attend Stanford as one from Remuera.
It is time to level up our learning system and step into the future.
