Axe over chief of exam authority

Qualifications Authority chief executive Karen Van Rooyen may lose her job before the Government-ordered inquiries into the scholarship exam mess are completed.

Ms Van Rooyen and board chairman Graeme Fraser will today face Parliament's education select committee where they will be grilled about the disastrous exams that have caused severe embarrassment to the Government.

The Herald understands Ms Van Rooyen's future at the NZQA is increasingly under threat because of the controversy, in which hundreds of New Zealand's best students failed to get scholarships.

The debacle has brought widespread criticism, including harsh words from Prime Minister Helen Clark, who said yesterday that she would not rest until she had got to the bottom of what went wrong.

The NZQA is also the focus of one of the two inquiries announced yesterday by Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope.

State Services Commissioner Dr Mark Prebble is to appoint someone to review last year's scholarship exams by April 29 and the NZQA's performance by July 31.

But the Government will want some immediate solutions, and Ms Van Rooyen will remain under pressure to resign.

Mr Benson-Pope said last night he did not think her job was under threat, but he did not want to usurp the State Services inquiry and wanted it to have time to be conducted correctly.

The second inquiry, by a group of education experts, will recommend options for this year's scholarship exam which Mr Benson-Pope will take to the Cabinet in two weeks.

"It is not a lot of time," he said, "but we have teachers and students who need to know the shape of the exam system that will be used at the end of this year."

It is only a week since Mr Benson-Pope announced the creation of 373 "distinction certificates" to try to balance the high failure rate.

The Government had hoped the the replacement awards would be enough to make the scholarship problem go away.

Instead this week it intensified.

Helen Clark and Mr Benson-Pope said the scholarship exams were separate from the NCEA so public confidence in the entire system would not be eroded.

But last night the Government was coming under increasing pressure to conduct a full investigation into the NCEA system.

Rangitoto College principal Allan Peachey and Avondale College head Brent Lewis said the inquiries did not go far enough in examining standards-based assessment.

Mr Lewis, who is also president of the Auckland branch of the Secondary Principals Association, said the Government was trying to ring-fence scholarship problems and prevent them "contaminating" NCEA levels one to three.

The review was political damage control and pointing the finger as to who knew what and when.

The Post-Primary Teachers Association agreed that the inquiry should be widened to investigate exam variability at all levels of the NCEA.

On Monday, Helen Clark said the Qualifications Authority was "on the mat" over the scholarship problem.

National Party education spokesman Bill English said Helen Clark's comments were an attempt to shift the blame from her ministers to the NZQA.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard and Mr Benson-Pope should be held responsible, Mr English said, describing the inquiries as simply an attempt to keep people quiet.

Mr English has produced a document showing the scholarship problems were raised at the Secondary Principals and Leaders Forum last August.

Yesterday in Parliament he asked Mr Mallard if that information had been passed to him last year.

Mr Mallard said it had not.

Mr Mallard was responsible for primary and secondary education until December's Cabinet reshuffle, when Mr Benson-Pope took over.

Yesterday, Mr Mallard said it was unfair that his colleague had to take the rap for a problem that arose under his watch.

Mr Mallard said he was going through all reports and communications about scholarship to find out whether he was told about the problems last year.

If it is found that he was informed and did not take action, it could have serious ramifications for his job.

Helen Clark said she wanted what had happened to be "spelt out for the record" and said that also applied to her ministers' roles.

Two inquiries

State Services Commission

A review of the Qualifications Authority's performance.

An investigation into the 2004 scholarship exams.

Education experts

This inquiry will look at the 2005 scholarship exams and is to report within two weeks.