KEY POINTS:
Education Minister Steve Maharey says alternative exams will not serve students as well as the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA).
Secondary schools are coming under pressure from parents to offer overseas exams which rank students, and some are considering using the Cambridge International Exams.
Avondale College principal Brent Lewis said last week some parents were threatening to withdraw their children if there was no alternative to the NCEA.
Mr Maharey said today about 37 of the country's 400-odd secondary schools were offering alternative exams or were considering doing so, and there was nothing to stop them.
They had to teach NCEA as well and students would have a choice.
"The problem I have with Cambridge is that it's a private exam from Britain, developed for the colonies as it was called in those days," he said on Radio New Zealand.
"Without criticising countries like Botswana...those are the kind of countries that use it because they don't have their own."
Mr Maharey said the Cambridge exams did not have any relevance to New Zealand and, unlike the NCEA, had not been designed for New Zealand.
"When it comes down to preparing a person for the real world of work and further study, I don't think it does the same job as NCEA at all."
Mr Maharey said initial problems with the NCEA had been worked through, although there were still some design changes to be made.
"We've got a way to go yet before I'll be really happy with NCEA, but certainly we're well on the road now to having the kind of blue chip assessment that I want," he said.
"The operation of NCEA is working very well, we've had two exam and assessment seasons that have gone well."
Mr Maharey acknowledged there had been problems to start with.
"NCEA was quick out of the blocks, some would say too fast out of the blocks...it was too big a change to do that quickly," he said.
- NZPA
