Lisa Rodgers: NCEA is not a pass or fail system

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This time of year marks the culmination of months of hard work.

Tens of thousands of our kids have been working all year to give National Certificates of Education Achievement, or NCEA, their best shot. They want to succeed, and of course, that's what their parents want too. They want their sons and daughters to do the best they can.
Columnist Peter Lyons wrote about his nephew and his parents' concern he was finding his NCEA level one 'cool' and 'cruisey'.

I know, as a parent, how hard it is to see kids on study leave. When I was their age I was revising for a series of three-hour exams. It was pass or fail, regardless of the previous two years' work. That's not fair.

Three-hour exams on their own, as evidence of two years' learning, just isn't fair. Nor is it a valid way to understand what kids have learned.

NCEA is not a pass or fail system. Our National Certificates of Education Achievement allow kids to learn and achieve as they go. While students sit exams, there's much more to it. They're also continually working throughout the year to gain credits. That's a good thing.

But crucially, where a student has not fully met the standards for a credit during the year, they can have another shot after further teaching and learning.

Within the NCEA there are core subjects that we as parents would recognise - English, maths, geography and science.

As well as the traditional subjects, NCEA allows kids to develop a diverse range of highly-relevant skills and knowledge. And that's exactly what employers are looking for.

I want to clarify the way kids' courses are endorsed and how they get a merit or an excellence mark. Students are given a merit or excellence if they meet the criteria set for merit and excellence.

Previously, only a certain percentage of kids were able to achieve an excellence mark. The number of kids that could achieve that mark would depend on how the whole year group performed rather than whether they met the criteria as individuals.

Mr Lyons makes the point that the chief examiner had to go back to his markers to ask them to check their marks.

The chief subject examiner would know roughly how many kids normally get particular marks. He would have noticed a discrepancy and, of course, needs to go back to his markers about that. Parents should be reassured by that.

Each year moderators from NZQA quality assure 100,000 pieces of work.
Our assessment system is underpinned by a rigorous and well-embedded system of quality assurance.

The Office of the Auditor General reviewed processes in 2012 and concluded that students, parents and educators can be confident that NZQA has effective systems to support internal assessment for NCEA.

More and more of our students are succeeding at NCEA, especially Maori and Pasifika students. The proportion of 18-year-olds with level 2 NCEA has risen from 68 per cent to over 80 per cent.

Since 2008 the proportion of Maori 18-year-olds with level 2 has risen from about 44 per cent to nearly 70 per cent and the proportion of Pasifika 18-year-olds with level two NCEA has risen from 51 per cent to 75 per cent.

That is great progress. We should celebrate it and continue to build on what is already a great system.

We're nearly at the end of the exam phase of NCEA. I want to wish every student the best for next year and thank their teachers, principals and parents for backing them to succeed.

Lisa Rodgers is the Head of Student Achievement at the Ministry of Education.