Dump NCEA, students say

More than half of students want NCEA dumped in favour of the old examination system, according to a survey.

Youth market research consultancy 18Ltd, said 61 per cent of those questioned would prefer a return to School Cert and Bursary rather than face another year of standards-based assessment.

Nearly half of the 250 students in the study said the NCEA system was "really bad". Nine per cent said it was "pretty good" while 20 per cent had no problem with it.

More than two-thirds said they were aware of the media coverage and the problems highlighted and were "glad it is being discussed".

18Ltd managing director Spencer Willis said the biggest message was the students had a high degree of uncertainty about the NCEA.

"There's a fear factor that the ballpark has changed but nobody has been told where they stand," he said.

"We've got kids running around with pieces of paper that neither they nor their parents understand."

Traditionally, school-leavers walked out of the gates knowing what they could and could not do.

Mr Willis said secondary qualifications were a badge of identity for a year or two, but the guinea pig generation who left school last year had a sense of emptiness. "They are walking away badgeless and that is difficult at 18 years old," he said.

The majority of students also felt NCEA did a bad job of preparing them for life and work.

A third said the exam system was "not at all" helpful in preparing students for overseas experience opportunities.

But a majority said the NCEA worked well in providing a balanced education and preparing a student for further study.

Mr Willis said he was surprised by how positive the results were.

"That 40 per cent of the kids back NCEA shows that it is nearly there. For a whole new system to get that level of approval rating is good."

Most of the comments submitted to the survey reflected that the system needed "a tidy up" rather than a complete overhaul, Mr Willis said.

The Government has ordered several reviews into the variability between results, standards and years, and into the performance of the Qualifications Authority.

Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope has said he was concerned about students becoming demotivated by NCEA, which a Post-Primary Teachers' Association report had suggested.

Byron Bentley, principal at Macleans College in East Auckland, said students would always criticise the exam system, whatever it was.

But Mr Bentley said the survey still bore out concerns people had.

"Every student has either been affected, or knows someone who has been affected, by the unfairness of the external moderation," he said.

"There's no surprise that these students are upset with that."

A student from Whangarei who has been a guinea pig for each level of NCEA told the Herald she would always resent her experience.

Bridget Clarke, now at Victoria University in Wellington, is still waiting for re-marks on two of her scholarship papers.

She said there were huge differences between what she and others in her lectures learned.

"This first few months at uni is a waste of time because it's just bringing us all up to the same level."

Ms Clarke said she believed standards-based assessment could work, but it had been badly implemented and it was her and her peers who would always suffer.

A report by a panel of education experts is expected to recommend a return to rankings for scholarship exams when it is taken to Cabinet next week.

Ms Clarke said she would support a return to School Cert and Bursary, but it was too late for "the year that never was" as it has caused a "whole list of problems we have to face now in the real world".