KEY POINTS:
A student's dream of a drama scholarship is in tatters after a vital tape of her performance was mysteriously wiped and the NCEA exam board instead gave her a mark based on how other students fared.
Prema Cottingham, 16, received a letter saying the tape was unreadable when it arrived at the NZ Qualifications Authority.
Henderson High School insists that her tape and those of two other students were fine when they were sent to the NZQA.
Nothing could be done to retrieve the footage, which was shot by a professional who checked the tapes before they left the school in November.
To prevent the teens being "disadvantaged", a special process was used to calculate their results - but Prema's marks fell short of gaining her a scholarship.
The marking process involved ranking all last year's Level 3 drama students' results then comparing them with results from students who completed the scholarship and fitting the affected students in on a similar scale.
Prema's score was worked out at 14 out of 24, four short of the 18 needed for a scholarship.
Her father, Philip Cottingham, who has spent nearly 30 years as a tertiary teacher, said the process was "educationally unacceptable".
He said Prema, who is overseas, should have been given an option of redoing her practical assessment.
However, the NZQA said the mistake was the school's and scholarships would not be awarded as there were a limited number.
NZQA deputy chief executive Bali Haque said Henderson High was responsible for filming the assessment. The authority had taken "extraordinary steps" including sending the tapes to experts and trying to extract any information that could be helpful.
Nothing worked so the students were marked on a system similar to that used when NCEA candidates were too ill to sit an exam.
Henderson High's head of drama, Lee Ross, said the tapes were fine when they left the school and it was wrong for students like Prema to be punished as a result of something that was clearly not their fault.
