Calls to scrap NCEA tests as failure rates soar in low-income schools

School principals are calling for an end to new online NCEA tests. Photo / 123RF

• Principals from low-income schools are calling to end new NCEA reading, writing, and maths tests.
• They warn the tests could leave many students, especially Māori and Pacific, without qualifications.
• The principals advocate for a permanent alternative 20-credit option for literacy and numeracy requirements.

By John Gerritsen of RNZ

Principals from schools in the country’s poorest communities have united to call for an end to new NCEA reading, writing and maths tests.

They warn the online tests will create a generation of school-leavers with no qualifications and most will be Māori or Pacific.

After two rounds of reading, writing and maths tests last year, the failure rate for teens from low-income schools was through the roof.

More than half failed the reading and writing tests and nearly three-quarters failed the numeracy test.

None of those students can get an NCEA qualification until they pass the tests or complete up to 20 extra credits in literacy and numeracy – an option that is available only until the end of 2027.

Simon Craggs from Papakura High School said 50 principals from schools with an equity index number of 500 or greater – indicating their students face many socio-economic barriers to learning – wanted it to stop.

“We believe that there’s an equity crisis approaching in education, or is already here actually. If you look at the results from 2024 you’ll see that the results, particularly at level 1 for students in the lowest socio-economic band, have dropped off a cliff,” he said.

He said the fall in achievement was due to the literacy and numeracy requirements and the schools wanted an end to the online tests.

They also wanted the alternative 20-credit option for meeting the literacy and numeracy requirement to become permanent instead of ending in December 2027, and they want it to count towards the 60 credits students need for an NCEA certificate.

Craggs said if the Government did not change the policy, it would be a disaster.

“There will be a whole generation of kids, a lot of them will be brown, who have no qualifications when they leave high school and that’s just wrong. It’s an equity issue and at the moment it seems that people are turning a blind eye towards it,” he said.

Craggs said literacy and numeracy standards needed to improve, but the online tests were the worst possible way of enforcing it.

He said the group passed on its recommendations to the Secondary Principals Association and the PPTA’s Secondary Principals Council which were expected to raise them at an NCEA advisory group convened by the Education Ministry last week.

Mākoura College principal Simon Fuller said the problem was probably the No 1 issue for most high equity index schools.

He said the schools were facing a 70% failure rate once the common assessment activities or CAAs became the only route to achieving the literacy and numeracy requirements.

“Our NCEA results are really good but that’s not due to the CAAs, that’s due to the alternative pathway, which I believe is just as a robust as a CAA. So our statistics are holding up, but if it comes down to only getting NCEA if you know you can pass the CAA, then we’ll go from an 85% pass rate to 35% which is a huge impact on our kids,” he said.

Fuller said teenagers had not had the benefit of the latest changes to literacy teaching in primary schools and the online tests were not a fair test of their abilities.

“It’s not that they can’t necessarily read, write and do maths, they just can’t do it in that form of exam. And you know, realistically how many exams do you sit when you’re a functional member of society, it’s very few.”

Jim Hay-Mackenzie from Flaxmere College said students who the school assessed as having the necessary level of literacy and numeracy still failed the online tests.

“The issue that we have at Flaxmere College is the way it’s being assessed, which is through the online test of reading and writing and numeracy. Many of our students aren’t very good at tests and exams, and our data’s shown that students that have met the requirements through our testing have not been able to handle the pressure of a 60-minute test,” he said.

Hay-Mackenzie said many of the school’s students struggled with the online nature of the tests and would do better with hard copy, paper-based tests.

He said he would prefer a literacy and numeracy assessment via a portfolio of work, but failing that, a hard-copy test.

“When we tried the tests on our Year 10 students, they were quite excited sitting the test.

But when the results got back, many felt quite deflated. Also having to sit this test again and not pass them again made them even worse.

“My fear is if students are having to repeat the CAAs, it’s going to have a major effect on their self-esteem and also on the retention rate of our students.”

Education Minister Erica Stanford last year expressed concern about students failing the benchmark and announced $2.5 million to provide extra help for about 10,000 teens.

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