NCEA exam provokes political row

The National Party is calling for the identity of an examiner who set a "brainwashing" NCEA question to be exposed to ensure there is no hidden agenda.

The party's associate education spokesman, Simon Power, said he wanted to know who signed off last year's history exam, which included a question on Maori-Pakeha relations that asked students to answer as if it was 1980 and they were "A National Party member of Parliament not sympathetic to Maori concerns".

"Karen van Rooyen [New Zealand Qualifications Authority chief executive] has some questions to answer," Mr Power said. "It's not good enough to say I take responsibility and the question isn't biased. How did it get in? Who proposed the question?"

On Friday, he wrote to NZ First MP Brian Donnelly, the chairman of the education and science select committee, to seek his co-operation in calling NZQA before the committee to explain the question and its content.

He would also file an Official Information Act request today, seeking the model answers to the question.

"If they are not prepared to release them, all we can conclude is that there must be a political bias to the question which would be reflected in the model answer."

But NZQA told the Herald yesterday that all questions were set by a teacher or former teacher and anonymity was necessary to "preserve the integrity of the exam".

National Party leader Don Brash yesterday entered the row over the level-one question.

"I am appalled and angry at this and I want answers from the minister."

It was "blatant Labour Party political propaganda", he said.

The question was accompanied by a caricature of a bespectacled, balding man in a suit, which Dr Brash said appeared to be a "rather poor" depiction of himself.

But Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope rubbished the claims, saying the allegations showed National was "cracking under the pressure".

Heather Church, NZQA media adviser, said setting questions was a long and intricate process. After the examiner wrote a paper, it was checked by a moderator and then sat by a "checker", she said.

"In this instance, the moderator would have been checking that there was a chance within the question to show different people's perspectives in history."

It is the second time last year's NCEA exams have provoked criticism from the political right.

An economics exam question asked why the New Zealand Government providing free education at state secondary schools resulted in better resource allocation than the free-market model.

Students were also asked to explain why using free-market policies caused income inequality.

The questions were labelled "disturbing, ideologically loaded and inappropriate". NZQA said they were valid and had been part of the curriculum for 15 years.