Schools' results tables out

By STUART DYE, education reporter

A new system detailing schools' performances is set to cause a headache for parents wanting to find out how their child's school ranks against others.

The Qualification Authority's new "school profiles" were announced yesterday as part of the annual release of national figures on the Government's new secondary qualification, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement.

The profiles show the number of students at a school, how many participated in NCEA, what percentage achieved the qualification, and a breakdown of what standards were achieved by students within the overall qualification.

They also show how many subject areas a school offers.

They are intended to provide a summary and allow schools and parents to find out how students performed in national qualifications compared with their peers in other schools.

But critics of the system say the results can give distorted views of success.

Auckland Grammar School was in the top 10 last year, but the school's profile this year is "essentially meaningless", according to headmaster John Morris.

The school profiles reflect NCEA achievement as a percentage of the total number of pupils at senior level.

Under this system, less than 10 per cent of students at Auckland Grammar achieved NCEA level one or two, as around half the school sat Cambridge examinations instead.

Adjusting the figures to account for that gave a much "healthier" result, said Mr Morris.

The NZQA results are likely to be troublesome when compiling league tables because some schools allow pupils to study different levels at different times and most schools have different ways of assessing whether a student has reached the required level.

NZQA chief executive Karen Van Rooyen said the profiles were an attempt to log the vast quantities of information generated under the NCEA system.

"This detailed level of information is invaluable in helping schools improve teaching and learning," she said.

"NZQA does not rank schools. We provide data about student performance."

The NCEA system is in the second year of a three-year phasing-in to replace the old school certificate, sixth form certificate and bursary exams.

Paul Ferris, president of the Secondary Principals' Association, said parents could not rely on the results alone to make decisions on their child's education.

"It would not make any sense. They need to know a lot more and that can only be found through talking to the individual schools and looking at a lot more than the profiles." - additional reporting NZPA

NCEA profiles

* Girls outperformed boys in level one and level two NCEA - overall girls achieved 55.7 per cent of all completed NCEA qualifications to boys' 44.3 per cent.

* As an ethnic group Asians performed disproportionately better than other ethnicities, achieving 10.8 per cent of all completed NCEA qualifications, despite comprising 6 per cent of the population.

* As a group Maori students performed disproportionately worse, achieving 10.2 per cent of all completed NCEA qualifications, despite comprising about 14 per cent of the population.

* Pakeha students completed 69.7 per cent of NCEA qualifications and Pacific Island students 5.7 per cent - both slightly lower than their proportion of the general population.

New Zealand Qualifications Authority:

2003 Secondary NQF National and School Statistics and School Profiles

Herald Feature: Education