Editorial: It may be too late to save NCEA

Officials warn that students being able to avoid NCEA exams “can mean that critical learning in a subject may not occur”. Photo / NZME

Editorial

• Government officials, parents and principals are losing faith in NCEA’s credibility and effectiveness.
• Education Minister Erica Stanford is expected to announce substantial proposals for NCEA’s future.
• Epsom Girls Grammar will offer Cambridge exams next year, citing overwhelming community demand.

Government officials, and more importantly, parents and principals are losing faith in NCEA.

Yesterday, the Weekend Herald reported how Epsom Girls Grammar is set to offer its students Cambridge exams next year, while Mount Albert Grammar School’s (MAGS) principal was concerned schools were increasingly “abandoning” the national curriculum.

The anxiety over how we educate and prepare our kids for a rapidly changing world has also reached the upper levels of the Beehive.

On today’s front page, the Herald on Sunday reveals a Government briefing raised significant concerns about the credibility of NCEA.

It is now expected Education Minister Erica Stanford will announce substantial proposals for the future of NCEA.

“There really isn’t an option to do nothing,” she said. “I don’t think that tinkering around the edges is going to be something that’s going to get us where we need to be.”

Part of the problem appears to be the flexibility we deliberately built into the system is now what is causing so much harm and inconsistency.

Students quickly also found ways to game the system and avoid external examinations by collecting the required credits to achieve each level throughout the school year.

Highlighting the widespread nature of this habit, last year there were more than 250,000 instances of students skipping exams because they felt they weren’t necessary.

Officials warned students being able to avoid exams “can mean that critical learning in a subject may not occur”.

When students can simply choose not to show up, the credibility of the qualification plummets.

The Government also recently introduced some reforms. It had been, in part, triggered by employers complaining about the standard of students graduating with Level 1. Too often these kids couldn’t read, write or do simple maths.

Now students are required to pass online literacy and numeracy tests in order to gain their qualification.

But it may be too late to save NCEA, which now seems so damaged it may be phased out entirely.

A review by the Education Review Office (ERO) found that despite the recent overhaul, Level 1 was still “difficult to understand” and not preparing students for future achievement.

It said one option could be to “drop it entirely”.

Stanford told the Herald that New Zealand wanted to be “world-leading” with its flexible qualification.

But the world took a look and said, no thanks.

Epsom Girls Grammar will start its Cambridge International pilot next year. It said it had been flooded with “overwhelming community demand”.

MAGS’ principal Patrick Drumm also said his school is facing growing pressure to offer Cambridge exams.

Parents, Drumm explained, are concerned NCEA lacked “rigour”.

But thousands of Kiwi kids are still doing NCEA.

While the qualification may not look the same in the future, we owe it to those still studying hard every day to set them up for success.

Sign up to the Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.