Education Minister Erica Stanford will field questions from the site of her old high school following the Government’s decision to radically overhaul New Zealand’s main secondary school qualification.
The press conference at Auckland’s Rangitoto College will be live-streamed from the top of this article around 11.30am.
Yesterday, the Government announced the decades-old NCEA scheme would be abolished completely and replaced with two new qualifications at Year 12 and 13.
Under the new system, Year 11 students will face what is being called a “Foundational Skills Award” with a focus on literacy and numeracy. English and mathematics will be required subjects for students at this year level.
Year 12 and 13 students will seek to attain the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) respectively.
Under the proposal, students currently doing NCEA continue. Students who are Year 8 today will be the first affected by the changes which begin in 2028.
Students would do a mix of internal and external exams that add up to a mark out of 100, replacing the current achieved, merit and excellence rankings. That figure aligns to a letter grade such as A, B or C.
For example, a student who received 85/100 in English would get an A while 50/100 in History would get them a C.
Opposing political parties have been critical, saying the Government is rushing through the radical changes.
Labour’s education spokeswoman, Willow-Jean Prime, said “rushing changes through now for political expediency isn’t the answer”.
She said schools and parents told her they were concerned about “how hasty” the proposed changes were.
“Previous rushed overhauls have led to students being the guinea pigs for failed change – like national standards – so we must get this right."
The Green Party’s education spokesman, Lawrence Xu-Nan, said NCEA was not perfect but it recognised learning took place in different ways.
“Today’s announcement is another classic case of the Government favouring one-size-fits-all approaches. Our education system is too important to be reduced to a single, rigid framework that will leave many behind.
“We haven’t seen any clear case for the scrapping of NCEA - the Government has not made it. We remain entirely unconvinced this is what our school system needs. In fact, it risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.