KEY POINTS:
Teuila Lavea, 13, will try her best to ensure her NCEA certificates bear the "merit" or "excellence" marks.
The Auckland Girls Grammar Year 9 student reckons changes announced yesterday will better motivate her to study.
If they don't, mum Lisi Lavea will be there to apply some pressure.
"I put my foot down," said Mrs Lavea. "I want her to do the best she can in every subject."
As her only child is in her first year at high school, Mrs Lavea said she had yet to fully understand NCEA.
At the school yesterday, others welcomed the endorsements.
"It's good for the brainy kids," said Samantha Kumar, 15.
"It puts pressure on the kids who just settle for 'achieved'."
Year 12 student Tessa Smith, 16, said that, in the past, even the certificates of the school dux simply read that they had passed.
She said students who put the work in deserved to have a certificate that reflected it.
Principals the Herald contacted largely welcomed the move.
David Hodge of Rangitoto College, NZ's biggest high school, said the system mirrored a tertiary style of award, in which a degree could be achieved with honours. "It sets up a culture of aiming for the top."
Mt Albert Grammar School headmaster Dale Burden said the changes gave "50 per centers" a concrete goal.
"It's always been very difficult to motivate those sort of kids - it always has been and hopefully it won't always be," he said.
However, Macleans College principal Byron Bentley said it did little to address the system's problems.
Mr Bentley, also Education Forum chairman, wanted more grades brought in, including two fail grades, to differentiate between achievements.
"[These are] basically reporting changes, whereas you have to get into the engine of it and make some drastic changes there."
