Bali Haque: Assessment system by far the best for students

COMMENT

When will the increasingly isolated, shrinking and appallingly misinformed group of people finally give up on supporting an antiquated educational process (School Certificate and all that) that had plainly had its time and failed to meet the needs of the vast majority of New Zealanders?

When will they acknowledge that the National Certificate of Educational Achievement is now increasingly established, accepted and internationally well-regarded.

The NCEA was devised with one central focus - to improve the learning experience and success rate for all students.

The philosophy is straightforward: instead of putting up barriers for students to fight their way through to achieve recognition of learning - with many falling by the wayside in the process (which was what the old system did, and with a vengeance) - we are doing everything possible to ensure they succeed.

This is done under the NCEA in a number of ways:

* We tell the students what they need to know and how it will be marked. This means each topic or achievement standard is "on line", and the way it will be marked is clearly detailed.

The various performance indicators are also explained for each of the four grades available (not achieved, achieved, merit, excellence). Any student or parent or employer has access to this information on the Qualifications Authority website.

Opponents of the NCEA still seem to live in a world in which this is regarded as unfair, and in which learners should somehow have to guess what is required.

They also seem to want marks, as if a mark of 49 per cent can be really meaningful compared with a mark of 53 per cent in terms of discriminating between learners. Universities moved on to report in grades some time ago. Why can't schools?

* We test the students on their understanding on the basis of what works well. Under the NCEA, for at least half their course work students are tested by examinations set and marked externally from the school. For the other half, testing is developed by teachers helped by the Qualifications Authority, based on the nature of the content.

For example, students' understanding of the research process is best tested by requiring them to conduct their own research (instead of memorising how to do a research project for a written exam).

It is in this teacher assessment that outside moderators check to see that standards are maintained nationally. (This process is common throughout the OECD.)

Why do opponents of the NCEA continue to believe that a written exam is the only way to test learning?

* We ensure that students can compile their own courses which suit their needs and interests while maintaining a central compulsory literacy and numeracy core. Every parent and teacher knows that student motivation and interest is a key factor in boosting achievement. This means that all learning is recognised under one qualification, be it in physics or carpentry.

Evidence from all over the OECD points to the need to accept learning in all its forms across all disciplines. If nothing else, this is what the term "knowledge wave" is all about.

Plenty of able students want that sort of breadth to their education and have gone beyond the narrow thinking epitomised by opponents of the NCEA and self-appointed defenders of "standards" who bleat arrogantly about "dumbing down".

If this means that students have a detailed "record of learning" which needs to be organised by the learner to provide information required by prospective employers, what is wrong with that?

Surely this is an appropriate process for a learner to engage in, and one that all adults do when writing a CV.

* We acknowledge excellence by ensuring that excellence grades are rigorously checked and that top students are rewarded in schools and in the country.

This is perfectly attuned to the philosophy of improving learning and is certainly not at odds with the NCEA. The new Scholarship examination at level 4 to be introduced this year will prove to be a high-level qualification that already has established international benchmarks.

It should be noted that entry to top universities overseas generally has always required students to sit an entrance test anyway, regardless of the qualifications they have gained here.

* We make sure the focus is on learning in the classroom. Evidence is now building that although teachers have found the implementation of the NCEA to be a significant workload, it is focusing them on the crucial aspects of better learning and more focused and learning-based assessment. This is crucial.

All research tells us it is not the existence of an examination with a mark that makes for better learning, it is the nature of the learning process that makes the difference.

With the NCEA we have a chance of making assessment a tool for better learning, rather than a device to exclude, fail and provide an opportunity for some schools and newspapers to produce misleading, ignorant and damaging league tables of results.

The latest so-called furore about the non-reporting of "not achieved" internal assessments to the Qualifications Authority is a case in point.

For years, schools which are often now opponents of the NCEA have not reported the achievement of many of their students by simply not allowing them to sit the sacrosanct exam - and then claimed to be "the top school" in the country.

This abuse of the system was never an issue. Suddenly now it is.

While the diehard opponents of the NCEA whinge and become irrelevant, students, parents and teachers are ensuring that New Zealanders emerge from their schools better educated. It is time for us to move forward.

* Bali Haque is principal of Pakuranga College. He is responding to the view of John Morris, the headmaster of Auckland Grammar School, that those who doubted the value of the NCEA are quickly being proved right.