Minister dissolves school board after it ignores edict

Minister of Education Hekia Parata. Photo / Michelle Hyslop

Minister of Education Hekia Parata has dissolved the board of trustees of Moerewa School, which opened for term two today, despite a Ministry edict to enrol senior students at other schools.

The school principal has defended her staff, despite an audit finding they failed to spot student work was copied word for word from Wikipedia in NCEA papers.

Ms Parata said an NZQA audit of Moerewa School found work was copied from Wikipedia, exemplars were not altered and some of the work was completed by other students.

Many of the school's marked results had to be downgraded to 'not achieved' after the audit found the grades awarded were not at national standard.

The school was told its satellite agreement - where 17 students are enrolled with Auckland School Kia Aroha College but taught in Moerewa - has to end.

But after Principal Keri Milne-Ihimaera welcomed senior students into the school for the beginning of term two with a powhiri this morning, the minister dissolved the Board today after they chose to ignore her instruction that the school's senior learners be enrolled at other schools.

Secretary for Education Lesley Longstone has appointed Mike Eru as a commissioner.

But Ms Milne-Ihimaera said the Ministry of Education had got it wrong and students were doing well at her school.

"We've been asking the ministry for some discussion and dialogue and for the ministry to work with us since October 2011 and that hasn't happened. We haven't had the ministry actually come and have a look at what we're doing."

Ms Milne-Ihimaera said the school did not condone copying from Wikipedia but the concern related to a small amount of work.

She was hopeful the satellite school would be able to avoid closure after changes were made to improve its performance.

"We really hope that it doesn't get to that. We have met over the holidays with our community, with parents and we're trying to work to some solutions that keep the students within our community and still adhere to the minister's instructions.

"We hope that some common sense would prevail and that the ministry could see we are making genuine attempts to source... solutions within our community."

Ms Parata said she was "extremely disappointed to hear about the powhiri" held today as the students' "education and futures are at stake".

"I really feel for the learners but the truth of the matter is Moerewa School has let these students and their whanau down.

"As the NZQA audit found, work was copied from Wikipedia, exemplars were not altered and some of the work was completed by other students.

"That will not be tolerated from any school. Our learners deserve better."

NZQA issued a notice of intent to Kia Aroha that it will not be allowed to assess NCEA work from Moerewa School after its audit, although the college has until May 11 to respond.

The authority's audit looked at 366 of 436 reported results from 25 students last year. It found the grades awarded were not all at the national standard for 105 of the marked results (28.7 per cent). In almost all cases, the school's "achieved grade" was lowered to "not achieved".

Other concerns identified included:

-NZQA said students had access to exemplar material, and the same exemplars without any change were used to assess the students.

-More sophisticated student work being generated followed by more simplistic and error-prone work.

-Some work was word-for-word identical to text on Wikipedia.

-Some work was written by another person, later identified as another student.