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Some poorer schools appear to be giving students higher than expected NCEA marks for internally assessed subjects, early results from a study of school marking show.
The trend was labelled a considerable concern by one high school principal, while another rejected it as overly simplistic.
The Qualifications Authority analysis compared the difference between schools' internal assessment results and their external assessment results.
Results at the extreme ends, where a school's internal assessment scores were either significantly higher or lower than its externals, were further analysed.
In many subjects, the gap between the internal and external results was wider for the group of low decile schools than for the group of high decile schools. Deciles are a rank given to schools based on various factors, including the median income in the school's community. Deciles range from 1 (the poorest) to 10 (the richest).
NZQA deputy chief executive of qualifications Bali Haque said the data did show a trend for wider gaps for low decile schools but no conclusions could yet be drawn.
He said the figures were not reliable because the study was still in an early phase. It would not be finished until next year.
In the interim, other data could come to light to explain the suggested trend or change it, he said.
Mr Haque said outstanding teaching was a possibility for why schools might get significantly better internal assessment results.
Other reasons include schools' different policies around resitting internal assessment.
Overall, the data showed 102 high schools - about a quarter nationally - had wider-than-average variations between internal and external results in at least one subject.
In English, a core subject, seven schools were identified where students' internal grades were noticeably higher than their externals, and seven where the reverse happened.
Christchurch's Hornby High, which is decile three, had the most generous internal scores compared with its external scores in the subject, followed by Penrose High in Auckland, also decile three.
The data for Hornby High showed that while no Level 3 English externally assessed standards received an excellence mark, 21 per cent of internals made that grade.
Meanwhile, Auckland Girls' Grammar and Horowhenua College - both in the middle of the decile range - were at the opposite end of the spectrum in the subject, with internal scores significantly lower than externals.
Brent Lewis, principal of one of the country's biggest schools, Avondale College, said clean, credible and consistent results were critical to the national qualifications system.
"These figures are a matter of considerable concern and need to be addressed," he said.
Papatoetoe High School head Peter Gall said many reasons could lie behind the variances.
He said more than half the school's students had English as a second language, and their strength lay in oral skills.
"An external standard on formal writing, they are going to find really difficult - but an internally assessed standard on making a speech, they are going to find easier," said Mr Gall.
