Education Minister steps into exam row

1.00pm


Education Minister Trevor Mallard is stepping into the national school examination scandal, which threatens to wipe out a year's worth of study for students whose exam timetables clash.

Some students have been scheduled to sit two exams at the same time.

They have been facing a tough decision about which subject to drop because the New Zealand Qualifications Authority said it would not allow them to sit a test after others had already done it.

The problem affects those sitting level 3 and level 4 (scholarship) National Certificate of Educational Achievement exams, which replace Bursary this year. Three exam sessions are scheduled for the same day.

The authority's policy is that, in these circumstances, the affected students should withdraw from one exam.

Authority group manager Kate Colbert initially rejected the option of allowing affected students to instead sit one exam straight after another, saying it would undermine the integrity of the examinations.

But yesterday, after a meeting with Ms Colbert, Mr Mallard said the authority would change its policy to allow pupils who faced clashes to sit an exam after their peers so long as they were supervised by a school principal to ensure they were not given the answers.

"I wanted to make sure that students were not disadvantaged unfairly by the timetabling," Mr Mallard said.

"NZQA did try earlier in the year to get consensus from schools over the timetable so these sorts of clashes could be avoided, but couldn't."

Hillcrest High School Year 13 student Kate Broadhurst was due to sit five NCEA exams in two-and-a-half days in November.

She said she was already cramming for exams.

"It's just going to be one exam after another after another. I've got level three calculus and classics on the first day and then the level four (scholarship) exams for the same subjects the next day."

She had written to the NZQA.

"I'm just going to have to do heaps of study beforehand and be as comfortable as I can with my subjects, because I'm not going to feel like studying after I've had two exams in one day.

"It's really frustrating."

Ms Colbert said the clashes were brought about because of the high number of exams scheduled this year. There were 118 schedules instead of last year's 50.

Ms Broadhurst said NZQA had made things difficult and the timetable was a mess.

"You have to take three level four subjects in order to get a scholarship pass. They won't just let you take one or two," she said.

Hillcrest High School principal Kelvin Whiting said the timetable wasn't fair.

"It's absurd. We notified NZQA of our concerns earlier this year.

"Now we have students with exam clashes and incredible pressure with a large number of exams in a short amount of time. It's just unbelievable.

"Students shouldn't be penalised or disqualified because of timetable deficiencies."

Mr Whiting said the school had a good scholarship results record and wanted that to continue.

- NZPA