Deborah Coddington: A shot in the arm for NCEA

Can the good lady doctor cure the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and, more specifically, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement?
Director-General of Health Dr Karen Poutasi has been appointed the new chief executive of NZQA in what must be, if I'm permitted one more bad metaphor, the hospital pass of the year.

NZQA has been the Labour Government's ICU patient and no education minister has been game enough to turn off the ventilators (no more, I promise).

Eight chief executives in as many years, the disastrously implemented NCEA, shoving the highly successful national Scholarship out of the way and insisting the bureaucratic standards-based scholarship had nothing wrong with it - just a sampling of the fodder gifted to opposition parties for lobbing at hapless education ministers.

Staunch work by National's Bill English saw off NZQA's chairman, Graeme Fraser, and the seventh chief executive, Karen van Rooyen. And not before time. These two appeared before Parliament's education and science select committee and arrogantly dismissed concerned questioning from MPs about the implementation of the NCEA, suggesting all was well and pesky parents who wrote to their local MPs demanding action should leave education to the "experts".

Their ideological intransigence was alarming, considering the growing number of parents who doubted the efficacy of these new-fangled qualifications.

But as the quintessential civil servant head Sir Humphrey told his Minister: "What on earth would parents know?"

National should not take all the credit. In 2003 Act's then education spokeswoman, Donna Awatere Huata, requested the committee hold an inquiry into NCEA. Every other party, including National, blocked it.

Undeterred, Awatere Huata, Richard Prebble and I held our own inquiry, traipsing around the country and meeting students, parents, teachers, employers - anyone who had strong feelings for or against the system.

Then last year there were not one, but three, damning reports on the NCEA. Fraser resigned immediately, slowly followed by van Rooyen who was put on gardening leave - serving out her three-month notice at home on "project work" for the NZQA board.

Poutasi's appointment won't please those who want the NCEA scrapped. She is, after all, just a bureaucrat, and one of the longest-serving chief executives of a government organisation.

New Education Minister Steve Maharey is hardly likely to overturn the wishes of his predecessor, Trevor Mallard, and tell the NZQA board to have Poutasi dump the NCEA.

But at least the appointment of someone with a proven track record of smoothly overseeing huge policy changes sends a signal that the Government finally recognises that if the NCEA is to work, there is much fixing to do. And let's face it, not every student in New Zealand is able to sit alternatives like Cambridge International or Baccalaureate.

So Steve Maharey should take some credit. He's replaced Fraser with Sue Suckling, a highly respected business figure who, more than anyone in academia's ivory towers, will appreciate how crucial it is for employment that high education standards are met.

Maharey's not an "on the ground" type. Anyone who manages to read his tertiary-education speeches without suffering eye-glaze-over from repetitive edu-babble will know Maharey sees himself as "Mr Big Picture".

I doubt Maharey will suddenly, now he's responsible for schools, morph into Mallard and behave like a technician, a meddler, a get-stuck-in-and-do-it kind of guy, whether that be closing down schools or declaring NCEA "a triumph". Which may be just as well if we want some good to come out of the NCEA mess.

Maharey (to use his own language) will paint a picture for Poutasi's board and she'll get on with it. Just like she got on with massive policy changes in the Health Ministry, including establishing District Health Boards and Primary Health Organisations.

You may not like those changes, but don't blame Poutasi for policy. Look beyond that to see she oversaw major upheavals with no correspondingly massive stuff-ups. Maybe Dr Poutasi is just the person to nurse the injured NCEA through to a healthily functioning working life. She's a medical graduate from Otago University and a management graduate from Harvard University. Her education was not based on one-size-fits-all; there were no feel-good prizes for losers. Plus she's a mother whose adult children, reputed to be academically gifted, came through the old system - competition, percentages and best in show.

And while Karen Poutasi is hardly a household name, she does attract praise from the commercial sector. The head of a training department at one of Auckland's major employers reckons she's just the person for "righting the ship".

It's true the news of Poutasi's new job, which she takes up in May, was greeted with a yawn, perhaps because it was announced at holiday time when the only interest in the civil service involves watching reruns of Yes, Prime Minister. On the other hand, the absence of friction could be a good thing. "Boring", on the resume of a top public servant, means someone who accomplishes results with minimum scandal.

If in doubt, think Christine Rankin.