Sporty students find exams on a Saturday hard to take

Saturday exams are clashing with several major sporting events on the secondary schools calendar, and have put some students' commitments in jeopardy.

Among the events exams clash with are the Auckland secondary schools boys' cricket finals on December 4, and the NZ secondary school track and field and road race championships on December 10.

Qualifications Authority acting chief executive Karen Sewell said some students had asked to sit the Saturday exams on another day, mainly because of sports commitments.

"We've explained that, in fairness to all the other scholarship students, letting them sit on another day is not appropriate," she said. There was "a considerable amount of money available for scholarship students and so the stakes are high. Preserving the integrity of the exams is paramount."

Avondale College principal Brent Lewis said the scheduling was not a big problem, but exam periods tended to coincide with the finals rounds of sports.

"I think academic outcomes are a bit more important than a few sporting events, quite frankly, though my sport coaches won't thank me for that statement. But it needs to be signalled well in advance so sporting fixtures can be considered.

"If they are heading into major finals plus they have exams that is quite tough for kids because the coaches and team-mates put a lot of pressure on them."

Some students would be allowed to sit the exam a bit earlier on the same day, so they finished soon after other students had gone in for the main exam.

It is the first year secondary schools have had exams on Saturdays.

NZQA introduced them because of exam clash problems last year.

Two scholarship exams were held the day before NCEA exams began, and most will be held in the week after the last NCEA exam. But there are three - biology, Spanish and history - on Saturday, December 3, and three on December 10 - mathematics with calculus, German, and media studies.

Most scholarship exams are after the main round of exams, from December 3-10.

More than 100,000 students have sat exams in the past week for two scholarship subjects, and 24 in NCEA levels 1, 2 and 3.

Ms Sewell said the centre had sent an extra 11,000 exam papers round the country in the last fortnight for late entries, on top of nearly 8000 extra papers in October.

Spare papers are kept at 12 centres so they can be sent to schools quickly.

The problem arose when students changed their minds on what standards they wanted to sit.

Mr Lewis said the NZQA had been responsive to other problems schools had faced, but some could not be solved.


TODAY'S EXAMS

* Level One: Mathematics (am), agriculture and horticulture/ agricultural science, horticultural science (pm).

* Level Two: Agriculture and horticultural science (am), classical studies (pm).

* Level Three: Classical studies (am), agricultural and horticultural science (pm).