Education: More than 40 per cent of students fail latest NCEA writing, maths tests

More than 40 per cent of students failed the new NCEA writing and numeracy tests. Photo / 123rf

More than 40 per cent of students failed the writing and maths components of the latest NCEA literacy and numeracy tests.

Results from the June 2023 tests were released last month and show only 56 per cent of the 41,000 students who took part passed writing and numeracy. Reading results were slightly better with a 64 per cent pass rate.

Reading results were up from a 58 per cent pass rate in the September 2022 tests, while writing jumped from 46 per cent to 56 per cent.

In numeracy, the pass rate dropped very slightly from 57 per cent in September last year to 56 per cent in June.

Students will be required to pass all three components of the new tests, which are still being piloted, before they can be awarded NCEA at any level.

More than 70 per cent of those who sat the June tests were in Year 10.

Initially, the tests were going to become mandatory next year but Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced in April there would be a two-year transition period when students could also gain their literacy and numeracy requirements through passing a set of maths and literacy achievement standards.

The tests will now be compulsory from 2026, but students will be able to re-sit the tests every year until they pass.

Tinetti reiterated the assessment was still in the pilot phase and the number of students who participated was very small.

“It is not appropriate to make generalisations based off this small cohort,” she said.

“Achievement rates reflect that specific assessment of literacy and numeracy skills is new, and students and teachers are still becoming familiar with the requirements of the standards, and developing targeted teaching and learning.”

Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand president Vaughan Couillault told Newstalk ZB’s Heather Du Plessis-Allan there was “definitely a literacy and numeracy issue”, which he believed had been exacerbated by the disruption caused by Covid.

The test results were “giving us a bit of a jolt,” he said.

He said schools had not yet had an opportunity to backfill the learning and make sure Year 9 and 10 students were arriving at high school with the skills they needed.

“The prep work hasn’t been done and then you throw over the top of that the last two or three years of disruption and we’re weighing and measuring students at the moment, Year 10s, who were very disadvantaged over Covid.”

Couillault said putting an assessment in place sharpened people’s focus, but he said it was yet to be determined whether a single test was more effective than requiring students to pass certain assessment standards.

National Party education spokeswoman Erica Stanford said the latest test results reflected the “dire state of education in New Zealand”.

“Evidence shows that without these literacy and numeracy skills, young people find it much harder to succeed in the workforce, and earn less later in life,” Stanford said.

National has promised to require all primary and intermediate schools to spend an hour a day on reading, writing and maths, rewrite the curriculum to include clear requirements about what students should learn each year, measure students’ progress twice a year, require all schools to teach reading using the structured literacy method, and ban cellphone use at school.