Students are primarily achieving NCEA qualifications through internal assessments, with many avoiding external examinations. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Students are primarily achieving NCEA qualifications through internal assessments, with many avoiding external examinations. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Opinion by Tim O'Connor
Tim O'Connor is the headmaster at Auckland Grammar
THE FACTS
A document presented by officials to Education Minister Erica Stanford in June raised significant concerns about the credibility of NCEA.
Stanford is due to announce what are expected to be substantial proposals for the future of NCEA.
Concerns have been raised that the flexibility built into NCEA means courses can be structured around those perceived to be “easier” to accumulate credits.
Most parents of teenagers will be able to recall their personal experiences with School Certificate, University Entrance/Bursary and potentially scholarship examinations.
Since its introduction in 2002, it’s fair to say the complexities involved with the standards-based NCEA qualification have left most parents in the dark, with many teachersand students.
Some countries have attempted to establish similar models to ours over the past 20 years, but have found them unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons. These include the complexity of assessment and reporting, and the limiting effect that standards-based assessment can have on learning and teaching.
The reported strength of NCEA, that is, its flexibility, has found schools “game” the system, thereby helping students to accumulate credits to earn the qualification.
Depth of learning or the retention of knowledge has too readily become secondary to quality teaching and the learning process.
As NCEA was being introduced in 2002, our school’s critique of the new framework said it would:
Undermine the coherence of individual subjects and the importance of integrating understanding
Increase teacher workloads due to the volume of internal assessment.
Remove a consistent national standard and benchmark
Complicate reporting to students and parents
Create uncertainty in university entrance qualifications
Over 20 years later, the Education Review Office (ERO) and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) have been reporting on the state of NCEA. They highlight major concerns that include “No core learning is required to achieve subjects within the qualification” and “The flexibility of the qualification is being used to prioritise credit accumulation over meaningful learning and clear educational or vocational pathways”.
What we need and need now is the Minister of Education to take the boldest of steps. NCEA, as we know it, should be abolished.
Education Minister Erica Stanford is preparing to make announcements about NCEA. Photo / Alyse Wright
What we need is a simplified, rigorous but fair national qualification. Get the design right and we will have a new system that we can be proud of.
The core foundational knowledge our children need to learn and the science of learning point the direction we need to take quite clearly. Our national curriculum and qualification system need to reflect this.
Introducing a new national qualification will provide every student across the country, no matter where they live, with an equal opportunity to learn content-rich subjects that will provide them with equal opportunities to realise their potential in the world.
What’s the fix?
The first step is the introduction of an internationally benchmarked curriculum. This step is under way with the draft English and mathematics curricula in place for consultation.
Our national qualification should then assess our national curriculum in each approved subject area. This will make good sense to parents; however, since the introduction of NCEA, it has not been common sense, as the content has been driven by assessment criteria. This must change.
Ideally, the assessment system will include a number of critical elements in order for the qualification to gain credibility and to be respected by professionals nationally and internationally and parents of future generations of students.
The content being assessed must be aligned with the national curriculum. This needs to be provided to schools years in advance, so schools and teachers have time to prepare and so that students are not disadvantaged by the changes.
Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O'Connor. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The primary mode of assessment should be examinations, as they are an objective and independent form of assessment. Such a system will allow students from across all regions in our country to have faith that they have earned a nationally benchmarked qualification.
These new qualifications should include some internal assessment, because not all types of content are best assessed under exam conditions. But all assessments must be conducted under controlled conditions and they should all be marked by the NZQA. Under this new system, teachers would not mark students’ work in their schools.
Internal assessment marks would not be made available to students until they receive their external results, thereby removing the damaging practice of “credit counting”, which has become such a problem in the current system. This will also encourage student attendance and continued learning throughout the entire academic year.
Results should be reported as percentages, which everyone understands, and which enable comparisons, so that anyone can draw meaningful inferences about student performance.
Norm-referencing the assessment system would ensure marks and results across years could be broadly compared, so that results are more meaningful to parents, employers and universities.
Our national qualifications should be restricted to the final two years of students’ secondary schooling – Years 12 (the old Form 6) and Year 13 (Form 7).
The qualification, University Entrance, should be in students’ final year, and the quality of these assessments should be endorsed by our universities. As a result of NCEA’s flexibility, hundreds of students arrive at our universities annually, only to find they have not met entry qualifications and have to complete foundation programmes.
The recently introduced NCEA corequisites are causing more problems than they are solving at present. They will not be required if new mathematics and English assessments are robust: they will show how literate and numerate students are, and students’ entire qualifications won’t depend on three assessments.
Introducing a rigorous national qualification that parents, students and teachers can understand and be proud of will provide generations of students with equal opportunities to realise their potential in the world.
