Is NCEA still the right way for our students? - James Bentley

Is the self-proclaimed "world-leading" National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) still the right way for our students? Photo / Michael Craig

OPINION

In 2002 New Zealand introduced a standards-based qualification system to our secondary schools. Phased out over the following three years, School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate and Bursary were replaced by the self-proclaimed “world-leading” National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).

Two decades on it is my view that it is time to revisit this decision and explore whether our national qualification remains fit for purpose for an isolated country in a globally competitive world.

To describe NCEA as “world-leading” remains a major stretch. “World-first” is perhaps more accurate, as few, if any countries have decided to take our lead and introduce a similar assessment model to their nation’s teenagers.

While many of the reasons remain lost to the annals of time, the primary motivation for the introduction of NCEA was to ensure students could be assessed for specific skills and knowledge. This meant subjects like mathematics were broken up into chunks of assessments, so instead of one grade you had several. It was also intended that through NCEA, students would experience more success than they did under the old system.

Once NCEA was embedded in our nation’s secondary schools, the changes were swift and they were dramatic.

NCEA implemented a new standards-based assessment model. Photo / 123rf

NCEA implemented a new standards-based assessment model. Out went percentages, instead students could achieve only four grades; Excellence, Merit, Achieved and Not Achieved. Each assessment was worth credits and if students gained enough, they met the magic number to earn their level of NCEA. Exams quickly went out of favour and in-school assessments (now called Internals) exploded as students and schools soon recognised the former were not seeing as much success as the latter.

Vocational subjects became intertwined with traditional academic subjects, meaning one student could achieve NCEA Level 2 via Biology, English, Economics, Photography, English and Mathematics, while another could achieve the same qualification through collecting a series of assessments in diverse areas such as landscaping, swimming, umpiring cricket and hospitality.

It even led to peculiar situations where a difficult Chemistry exam was worth the same amount of NCEA credits as “Freeze Meat products”.

While many of these flaws have been addressed over the years, many have not. Pass rates have soared across NCEA, but underneath there has been a suspicion many students have been bolstered by vocational standards that have only served to get them across the line.

There has been a marked decline in students gaining University Entrance, in which only traditional academic subjects can be used. Photo / NZME

In parallel to this, there has been a marked decline in students gaining University Entrance (another section again within NCEA), where only traditional academic subjects can be used. There is also justifiable concern over the literacy and numeracy levels of many of our students.

While NCEA is globally accepted, some universities, even in our own country, are sceptical enough of marked-in-school grades to insist on specific exam grades to gain entry to restricted tertiary courses.

Numerous alterations to NCEA over the years have not been enough to satisfy the concerns of many schools, which have opted to provide alternative qualifications to their students, such as International Baccalaureate and Cambridge.

Additionally, the lack of confidence in the revamped NCEA Level One has seen many schools abandon it completely this year, instead opting to provide their own school-designed assessment system for their Year 11s.

There remains a determination to continue with the qualification.

The review process into NCEA began in 2018 with still no fixed timeline for when it will be completed. Evidence suggests further structural changes may not be enough to quell the dissatisfaction with a system that is not delivering for an enormous number of our teenagers.

While the premise behind NCEA may have been admirable at the time, it is important to have the conversation as to whether our national qualification remains the best option for our secondary school students, and for us as a nation.

James Bentley is Headmaster at St Peter’s College, Auckland