The Education Minister is confident the final pupils to achieve NCEA will leave school just as well off as those sitting the new qualifications and won’t be disadvantaged.
This week the Government announced a massive shake-up in education assessment, proposing that NCEA to be replaced with a new qualification focusing on English and maths and graded with an A to E and 0-100 system.
This morning, Education Minister Erica Stanford disputed claims that students in Year 9 this year - the first year of secondary school and the last cohort that will sit NCEA before they end - will be worse off than those in the year below them.
“NCEA is a good qualification and those young people in Year 9, my message to them is you should feel proud about your accomplishments.
“NCEA is still worthy. We are going to make it much better, more robust, more internationally comparable, and give parents more confidence that their students will be or their kids will be set up for success.”
She also told Herald NOW’s Ryan Bridge that the new curriculum would not “sacrifice” the needs of students who have learning challenges.
“We are keeping that flexibility of having and that balance of having internals and externals, which caters for lots of different learners. So it’s not just exam-based, but we do want to make sure that children do sit their exams.”
Stanford said we can not “cotton wool our kids” and having “rigour” sets students up for success.
“When you live your life, you have to sit a driver’s [test].
“If you’re going into the trades, you’ll need to sit your trades exams. There are always going to be those sorts of situations.”
On raising the age to be able to leave from 16 to 17, Stanford said although she would like to see kids in school “till the very end” it is not something they have considered at this point.
She said it did feature in the proposal, but only because it is something they wish to address in the future.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he was concerned about the disruption to students still sitting NCEA and whether or not they were supported through the transition.
“I think they’re a bit anxious about this because they’re sort of thinking, ‘What does this mean for the qualification that I am going to get and that I’m going out into the world with?’
“I think we just need to always keep that in mind.”
He told Bridge the “devil will be in the details”, and although this is a promising start, it was too soon to say if the changes would actually work.
The proposal, which is open for consultation until September before final decisions are made, represents the most significant update to secondary school assessments since NCEA was introduced more than two decades ago.
Under the new scheme, Year 11 students will face what is being called a “Foundational Skills Award” with a focus on literacy and numeracy. English and mathematics will be required subjects for students at this year level.
The intent of removing the Year 11 qualification is to give students time “to focus on deep learning of foundational skills and knowledge before undertaking high-stakes assessments in Years 12 and 13”.
Year 12 and 13 students will seek to attain the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE), respectively.
This will replace the current standards-based assessment system with a structured approach that requires students to take five subjects and pass at least four to receive the Year 12 and 13 certificates.
The assessments will have a clear “out of 100” marking system alongside A to E letter grades that the Government hopes will make sense to parents and students.
The Government will seek to implement the changes over the next five years alongside a refreshed curriculum. The Year 11 foundational award will be introduced from 2028, the Year 12 certificate in 2029, and the Year 13 certificate in 2030.
The discussion document being released yesterday also posed the idea of potentially lifting the school leaving age from 16 to 17 if that is what is necessary to encourage students to get a school certificate. In the first instance, the Ministry of Education will consider targeted support to get students to stay until the end of Year 12.