Government exam fix sparks more controversy

The Government has moved to restore confidence in scholarship exams by making widespread changes that include a return to ranking of students.

But two key critics say the changes do not go far enough - in particular the Government's decision to maintain a standards-based system - and worry the problems could happen again.

One of the critics - Auckland Grammar principal John Morris - was a member of the expert group set up to advise on changes to ensure the debacle with last year's exams did not recur.

Associate Education Minister David Benson-Pope announced the group's recommendations yesterday.

The main change is that scholarships will be awarded to a set percentage of students in each subject - around 2 to 3 per cent of the total number of students studying the subject at NCEA level 3.

Students will now be ranked to find the top students who will be awarded scholarships.

And a national scholarship monitoring panel will be set up to advise the Qualifications Authority on the implementation of the recommendations.

Mr Benson-Pope said the changes to the scholarship exams would provide certainty and ensure the problems with the 2004 exams - which saw hundreds of the country's top students miss out on scholarships - did not occur again.

But the Government's decision not to depart from standards-based assessment has caused controversy and prompted one member of the review panel to warn that there could be more problems with this year's exams.

Mr Morris said the Government's interpretation of the recommendations was not what he, and some others in the group, intended.

"The particular fact that they are going to be using standards-based assessment to try and decide the top scholars in the country is quite bizarre, to be honest."

It was asking the standards-based system to work in a way it was not designed to.

"We made it very, very clear that there had to be marks. We actually talked marks.

"So for them to come out and say it is still going to be standards-based is absolutely illogical and incomprehensible."

Mr Morris said there could be more problems with this year's exams unless they were carefully thought through.

Avondale College principal Brent Lewis also had concerns about the Government's changes.

Mr Lewis, former president of the Auckland Secondary Principals Association, said there appeared to be a mismatch between the reference group recommendations and what the Government had implemented.

He was also concerned there was no scaling.

"I cannot read anything here that resolves the fundamental problem that standards-based assessment is being applied and there is no scaling possible.

"If you can't statistically manipulate this information then you cannot give any public assurance that the same problem won't happen again," he said.

Mr Benson-Pope said he had been given assurances that ranking of students was possible within a standards-based system.

He said examiners would use marks, grades or other mechanisms to rank students, but neither the mark nor the ranking would be passed to the student.

Mr Benson-Pope called this a "refinement" of the standards-based system.

"I can't, and the Government can't, allow a repetition of what we had at the start of the year," he said.

Otago University professor Terry Crooks, who was also on the scholarship review group, said depicting the scholarship exams as standards-based was a "stretch".

"In this particular system, where you are aiming for a certain percentage getting scholarship, it is not a strict standards-based system.

"That has caused one or two members of the committee to get upset because it was not in our report."

National education spokesman Bill English said Labour had backed down on scholarship and that it was a fundamental shift in philosophy.

"Labour and NZQA have resisted any move to rank students against each other, but the public furore has forced them to take advice from experienced educators."

He said scholarship would work better because of the changes.

State Services Commission inquiries are still looking into result variability across the NCEA and systems and processes at the Qualifications Authority.

Two types of assessment

Standards based

Compares a student's performance with a set standard - and not with other students.

A student is judged on whether he or she meets that standard.

Ranking

The alternative is a traditional exam-based system which judges a student's achievement in comparison with other students and awards marks.