Dialogue: Unworkable process makes guinea pigs of students

Change is needed, but the vague, standards-based assessment of the NCEA is a retrograde step, says JOHN TAYLOR*.

Amid all the confusing debate about the imposition of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, which, at best, has lukewarm support from teachers throughout New Zealand, comes a quietly raised voice from four fourth-form girls at an Auckland secondary school.

In a letter to the editor of the Herald (May 18) they pointed out that they were to be guinea pigs for the new qualification system, yet they had not been consulted. There should be a moratorium on NCEA before it is too late.

This is to question not whether the general principles behind NCEA are wrong but whether, for example, the standards-based assessment methodology at present proposed will be so unworkable that those first students through next year will indeed be guinea pigs.

Critics of NCEA have never argued against a mix of external and internal assessment to make the process fairer. What they have argued against is the departure from more precise, marks-based to far more vague, standards-based assessment.

At the last round of NCEA teacher training days, there was debate and frustration as teachers from different schools tried to grade oral and written exemplars as deserving Excellence, Merit or Credit.

There was much disagreement and the strong sense that standards would be compromised throughout the country as schools interpreted Excellence, Merit and Credit in different ways, leading, of course, to the which-school-you-went-to scenario at tertiary and job-selection levels more than ever before.

With successive training days, the rank and file of teachers have seen the impracticality and difficulty of the road ahead.

More substantial concerns have been raised by Professor Paul Black, of Kings College, London, an assessment expert who was brought in by the Ministry of Education two years after the main decisions had been made, to look at the NCEA.

Unsurprisingly, Professor Black notes that he came into the debate when the scheme was on the brink of implementation and he judges it too late to make significant changes to the plans.

He appears to see his role as pointing to likely difficulties, to the further research required and to procedures to keep the scheme on track, rather than offering a fundamental redesign or alternative proposal.

First, he stresses the unusual nature of the scheme. It is radical and has the burdens of novelty. New Zealand could be the leading country in the introduction of a unified national system if this approach can succeed.

Secondly, he likes aspects of the scheme, as many do, particularly the graded modular approach which he sees as motivating for non-academically inclined students.

Similarly, he likes internal, teacher-based assessment and seems to discount the possibility of cheating when the stakes are high, despite well-publicised examples of cheating at tertiary level here and overseas just recently. He is not as concerned as many about the fragmentation of subjects.

Thirdly, and most importantly, he says the scheme has "serious deficiencies."

Even in aspects with which he is sympathetic, he points to serious problems, most of which have already been identified in local reviews. For example, he cites the reliability and validity problems arising from separate reporting of subject fragments.

He says the ministry is "disingenuous" to assume that the method of assessment won't affect teaching and learning.

He notes the difficulty of maintaining standards when systems change. He says the proposed training and resource material will "hardly be enough."

And he warns that the most experienced teachers - the ones most needed - are those most likely to be prompted to retire by the introduction of such an unnecessarily time-consuming and complex scheme.

Fourthly, he emphasises the need for "dynamic and evolutionary implementation" supported by "careful evaluation" and "procedures for amendment and research."

So what does that mean for those embarking on Level 1 next year? Professor Black provides lots of valuable discussion, but his positive comments, combined with lengthy excursions into matters of secondary importance, tend to obscure the harshness of his criticisms.

Reading between the lines of his polite prose, I conclude that his criticisms point to deep concerns. They imply that he thinks major changes (and hence further uncertainty, additional burdens and morale-sapping anxiety for teachers and students) can be expected, and that NCEA will survive only with major reconstruction.

That is why it is time for a moratorium. Before we subject those students entering Level 1 next year to guinea-pig status, there should be a further year of trialling and teacher training, so that the major reconstruction can be done before it becomes a reality for those in Year 11 in future.

A good place to start would be to decide whether three grades of achievement will allow for the discrimination necessary to recognise and reward student achievement at all levels.

If three grades of achievement are not enough, that should be remedied before their being put into practice next year.

Another common-sense remedy would be to test whether marks-based assessment of both external and internal work is a better way to achieve the same standards the NCEA proponents are looking for, rather than trying to describe achievement in words that are vague beyond compare.

Such a delay would also give time for more rational debate on an even more important issue. Why have Level I internal and external exams at all, when the great majority of students stay on for Years 12 and 13? Students who do not stay on are already being catered for by a mix of vocational unit standards-based courses on and off site.

Moreover, despite well-meaning assurances to the contrary, many experienced practitioners believe that running three sets of external examinations at the same time of the year will be impossible.

These are only a few of the many important practical issues which were not settled before the NCEA juggernaut began to roll.

There are many common-sense solutions to the major problems of NCEA, without bringing down the whole structure, but they must be found before those four fourth-form girls and their cohorts throughout New Zealand participate in a most unfortunate experiment.

* John Taylor is the headmaster at Kings College, Auckland.