Cambridge High may have been playing system for years

11.00am

Cambridge High School may have had internal assessment problems for some time, Education Minister Trevor Mallard said today.

The school has faced allegations of staff bullying and exam result manipulation since it was revealed it had a 100 per cent pass rate in the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

Yesterday the school was told by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) to stop using its "achievement recovery" programme immediately or lose its accreditation and Mr Mallard installed a limited statutory manager while reviews of the school continued.

The authority said yesterday its major concerns were related to the lack of trained teachers or formal teaching programmes in the achievement recovery room.

"Essentially, the activity is focused on helping students gain 'catch up' credits with questionable educational benefit," NZQA chief executive Karen Van Rooyen said in a statement.

The activity "isn't supported by a teaching programme and isn't supervised by qualified teachers".

Mr Mallard did not believe that the introduction of the NCEA system caused the problem. Instead it had exposed a long-running issue at the school.

"It may well be... when things become clearer in this case, that problems might have been ongoing in internal assessment for some time," Mr Mallard told National Radio.

"I am surprised. The idea that you would take children out of a regular classroom and not teach them, but ... assess them without there being any learning does concern me."

In June, one student who passed his NCEA level one last year with 100 per cent said his teacher had written answers to a test on the board for students to copy, and that he was able to get 35 unit standards in one morning.

Mr Mallard said he would wait for reports on whether even more serious actions were necessary to sort out the school.

NZQA chief executive Karen Van Rooyen said the compliance notice forcing the school to close the programme was the first NZQA has issued to a secondary school.

Draft reports were not normally made public until the school had had a chance to respond.

However, NZQA said it had suggested to the school that it adopt a new philosophy that every student leave the school with a meaningful National Certificate "at a level appropriate to their abilities and learning".

The authority plans to meet with the school fortnightly to ensure its recommendations are carried out. It will also conduct another formal review in October.

"Cambridge High School is now fully aware of the seriousness of the issues we've raised," Ms Van Rooyen said.

Mr Mallard said the limited statutory manager (LSM) would assume some functions of the board but day-to-day management would remain the responsibility of the principal.

He said he had acted quickly because the interests of the students were paramount.

"I have directed the Ministry of Education to appoint an LSM to support the school. It is not realistic to expect any board to have the in-depth expertise in curriculum assessment practice necessary to address the areas of concern," he said.

The board would remain in existence under the LSM, who will report to it and the ministry.

- NZPA