Parents find NCEA results hard to decipher

Some parents may feel they need a degree to interpret their child's NCEA results as they arrive in letterboxes and home computers this week.

Gone are simple subject and score listings. Advocates of standards-based assessment say it gives far deeper understanding of a student's abilities.

But the wealth of information - which goes live on the Qualifications Authority website today - has left some scratching their heads.

Myra Desouza said her 17-year-old daughter received her results on Monday. "It's so confusing, there's so many different papers that I didn't know what to look at."

However, Mrs Desouza, from Auckland, said her daughter got enough credits for a university place.

About 140,000 students received their results this week after the exams in November.

Qualifications Authority group manager Kate Colbert admitted that the results could be hard to understand, but that was because there was much more information.

"The numbers give you a general idea, but it's the record of learning that's really important."

She described the credits gained figure as "academic currency" which universities, polytechnics and workplace training organisations could use to select applicants.

More important for employers was the wealth of information about what an individual student was able to do, and training days would be held for employers and brochures sent out helping them to understand the results.