Education Minister Jan Tinetti considering transition period for new NCEA literacy and numeracy tests

Education Minister Jan Tinetti is considering a transition period for the new NCEA literacy and numeracy requirement. Photo / NZME

Education Minister Jan Tinetti says there may need to be a transition period for the new NCEA numeracy and literacy tests after the latest results showed half of students failed the writing component.

Results of the second trial of the NCEA literacy and numeracy co-requisite remained poor, with a decline in the number of students passing reading and a slight increase in writing and numeracy.

From next year, secondary students must pass the tests at some point between Year 9 and Year 13 before they will be able to receive an NCEA qualification of any level.

Speaking to the Weekend Herald, Tinetti stressed the purpose of the pilot was to get it right.

“One of the aspects that we are looking at is: what do we need in the way of transition?

“Having said that, I’m still not shying away from it. We need this and our kids need this and the integrity of the qualification needs this.

“Everything’s still on the table at this point in time, which is what the purpose of a pilot is.”

Results of the second pilot, carried out in September, showed 54 per cent of students failed the writing component and so would not be eligible to receive a qualification. The combined results of the two trials found 50 per cent of students failed.

The biggest improvement was in writing, where only a third of students passed during the first trial in June. The latest results also showed only 58 per cent passed the reading section, down from 64 per cent in the first one, and 57 per cent passed the numeracy component – an improvement from 56 per cent.

Students can sit the tests as many times as they need to pass.

Tinetti defended the results, saying if the tests had been run 10 years ago the results would probably have been the same.

“We just didn’t have that visibility of what was going on. So this is giving us the visibility and that’s really important.”

She said the Ministry of Education was seeking feedback from schools involved in the trial about what they needed to help their students to pass.

“We need to know what schools need in the way of supports to make sure they’re getting the right teaching, and quality teaching, in front of young people. We’ve got to look to make sure the practices we’ve got right through the schooling journey are lining up.”

Secondary Principals’ Association Vaughan Couillault said he hoped the results of the latest trial would have been higher, but it “reinforced the situation that we knew to already exist”.

Papatoetoe High School principal and Secondary Principals' Association of New Zealand president Vaughan Couillault agreed a transition period was needed for the new NCEA literacy and numeracy tests. Photo / Dean Purcell

“The vast majority of those who sat the test were in Year 10, which probably allows us a little bit of wriggle room to try and create remedies for that particular bunch of students.”

But he was concerned that, following the current timeline, students in the first two to three years would be disadvantaged.

“We acknowledge that the capability and capacity of pre-secondary school need some attention as well. We have a number of students that are likely to be required to engage in this co-requisite-only model when they haven’t been afforded the benefit of a focused approach in literacy and numeracy and the functionality of it in their earlier years.”

He believed there should be some sort of transition period in which the test was one way to gain literacy and numeracy qualifications but not the only way.

He suggested there could be a range of approved achievement standards as an alternative during a transition period.

PPTA acting president Chris Abercrombie agreed a transition period was needed and said teachers had serious concerns about the ability of the sector to introduce the “high stakes” tests next year.

“We are not confident the assessment activities - content, level, cognitive and digital load - are fit for purpose and that there are sufficient provisions for students with special assessment conditions,” he said.

“The teaching sector has not had sufficient lead-in time to make necessary changes to their teaching and learning programmes.”

He said the evaluation report on the pilot made 63 recommendations about issues that needed to be resolved including access to computers, the level that exams are set at, the readiness of Māori and Pacific Island ākonga and the need for more professional development for teachers.

Abercrombie urged the ministry not to rush the tests through.

“This is high-stakes stuff for every young person - if rangatahi don’t achieve these literacy and numeracy standards, they don’t get NCEA and their life choices are severely limited.”

‘No one right way to teach maths’: Education Minister

When asked to solve 27x43, Education Minister Jan Tinetti quickly came up with the answer – using the column-based method.

Mathematics teachers and experts spoken to in the Herald’s Making the Grade series argued the key to lifting numeracy rates is a return to first teaching children the column-based methods of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing rather than confusing them with a series of other methods early on.

Tinetti said the column-based method was the way she had been taught but said her children, who were in their mid to late 20s, did not learn to do sums the same way.

“They do it very differently to me. It’s an individual thing. They look at me and think I’m crazy. My son has a maths degree and he does that very differently.”

She said her children were proof there was no one right way to teach maths.

“I think the experts will tell you that we need to look at different ways as well.

“I think it is a really good time to look at an overhaul, but I want to look at evidence and research around that. I don’t want the next greatest thing, because our kids are too important for that.”