Heads demand NCEA rethink

Auckland secondary school principals have launched the strongest attack yet on the Government over the NCEA fiasco, calling for an urgent overhaul of the national exam system.

At its annual meeting last night, the Auckland Secondary Schools Principals' Association called for "robust and targeted action" to stamp out problems that have plagued the qualification.

While individual principals have criticised aspects of the new system, they have never before united and publicly complained about the problems with the 2004 results, in which scores of students failed to get the passes they expected.

A letter from the principals will be sent to Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope and the Qualifications Authority.

A further blow is likely next week when the Post-Primary Teachers' Association releases a report on its members' thoughts on NCEA.

Last night Mr Benson-Pope said the principals were calling for exactly what the Government had set in motion.

Government-ordered investigations are looking into the wildly varying results in scholarship, and the Qualifications Authority's handling of the system.

This week it was revealed the scholarship inquiry had been expanded to cover the NCEA results.

"NCEA is a relatively new system that is delivering for the vast majority of students and has the support of the majority of the teaching profession," Mr Benson-Pope said.

"The Government is taking action to address concerns and this will undoubtedly lead to improvements."

Association president Brent Lewis said the principals thought it was important that a public statement came from professionals in the sector saying there was a problem.

He said that while views on the NCEA and its future varied widely among the principals, they all agreed that the variability and inconsistency could not be tolerated.

Architects and supporters of NCEA have commonly blamed the problems on teething issues and the dumping of "scaling" used in previous exam-based assessment.

The principals' letter says: "Given that scaling is no longer possible with standards-based assessment, the association wishes to know the specific quality assurance processes and mechanisms that will be employed to resolve these matters."

Mr Lewis said the association supported the Government-ordered inquiries under way and it was pleased NCEA was now included.

Not all principals have backed the association's calls. Bali Haque, of Pakuranga College, took a different view.

"The inquiries under way are enough at this stage and I don't think the problems are as serious as some are making out."