KEY POINTS:
Views from teachers, students, parents and employers continue to pour in.
In the latest development, Business New Zealand chief executive Phil O'Reilly has said that NCEA could help employers judge students' specific strengths and weaknesses when they fronted up for jobs.
This forum debate has now closed. Here is a selection of your views on the topic.
Richard
I am a current student sitting NCEA Level 3.NCEA is a fantastic system. As Bill Gates has said many times, we need to replace, not reform the education system. This is what New Zealand has done, and as a result we have a much more relevant system. No longer do we have the "industrial discipline" machine line education, now we have a system that can be tailored to suit the student, and this, ladies and gentlemen, is where education is, and should be, heading. At risk of committing an argumentum ad hominem, I would go as far to say that anyone in New Zealand who believes that these overseas, irrelevant examination systems would be better for education in our country are either old-fashioned and behind the times, or jealous - they sat, for example, the flawed CIE, and are now vigorously defending it. In other words, they are idiots, only concerned for themselves. Students hate the new system? That is rubbish. I personally think it is much more motivational, challenging, relevant. This sentiment is shared by many other students I know from various New Zealand schools.
Patricia
Yeah well I think that they should work very hard at home for it...
Carolyn
The advocates for NCEA are trying to brain wash everyone into thinking it is good. Say something often enough and a lot of people will believe it. It has been tried and tested and failed miserably.
How many more years are going to be wasted before they get it right?
Mel Stewart
I just want to convey my thanks to Madeleine Ware for explaining the potential benefits of NCEA. As Phil Oreily from Business NZ said today, NCEA can be and is a better system for NZ job market and just needs few tweaks here and there. I think what the NZQA should do, is invite principals and some students from various schools around NZ and do a sit down discussion on what the perceived problems were how best to fix these problems.
In todays job market, an A+ in physics does not suggest that the person can be a good asset to an organisation. Nearly all employers look at people who can communicate well and work in teams - people who are proactive and resourceful. Having an A+ in physics may seem that the person is smart, but what if that person is unable to work with others or is unable to communicate his innovations to prospective investors.
I think the parents and kids who are jumping on the Cambridge bandwagon are rich, they are politically aligned to the right and we should not necessarily expect these students to stay in NZ longterm. These people are the ones destroying NZ - without any conscious they make judgments....just because they do not like something we should change it to benefit them and not even if the concepts are for the greater good of the country and its majority population.
I say NCEA should be made compulsory for all schools.(But there needs to be some discussions/ reviews to improve the problem areas)
Aayan Thiruchelvam
NCEA does not provide employers with robust criteria to evaluate employees. We recognise the dwindling numeracy and literacy of todays graduates and have therefore developed our own short half-hour test to evaluate the numeracy and literacy of potential employees. And we are discovering that the numeracy & literacy of candidates aged in their 50s is consistently much higher than those of candidates aged in their 30s and 40s despite similar backgrounds of experience and positions held when comparing their CVs. In conclusion, I do not bother relying on the results produced by NZs education systems and am happy to proactively and creatively devise my own assessment criteria for employment decisions.
Kevin
With all this controversy and bad press in regards to NCEA is making me lose confidence in the state's national qualification. What the government should have done is kept with the old system and slowly introduce the NCEA in three phases with two year intervals to make sure there is no discrepancies of what so ever. Call me traditional and conservative the old system showed a simple pass or fail depending on the subject that student takes. not go into complete detail. I have two brothers at a state secondary school right now, which provides NCEA as a national qualification. They are bright and intelligent where the Cambridge, IB diploma or the old system would show their respective strengths and weaknesses. The NCEA dumbs down their intelligence and creativity. Come on man give the very future of NZ a choice of qualification?
Lavanya Pushparajah
I am a Year 12 student and already I know NCEA is a good standard to work by. It is relevant to New Zealand and it is more practical in comparison to other exams. In some of the old exams there used to be a test for English where a student would have to give a speech during the year, then write about it at the end of the year. How stupid is that? Obviously they would have lied. I know NCEA still has some glitches to be fixed, but doesnt any new idea have them? If we do not give NCEA a try, we wont know if it will work. New Zealand is well known around the world for doing their own stuff, finding their own way and being different in general, that is what makes us stand out. So we shouldnt just do outdated irrelevant Cambridge because we have since we were part founded as a British colony, we have the right to make our children's education better, to make my education better, by trying new ideas and having the patience to see it through.
Mardia Hill
I am a first year University student who has completed three years of Cambridge exams at a private Auckland girls school, which I attended for six years on a Maori students scholarship. I completely and utterly disagree with Education Minister Steve Maraheys comments about NCEA being a better choice over Cambridge International Exams, and question his so-called "problems" with the CIE scheme. I wonder what relevance the fact that CIE is a "private exam from Britain, developed for the colonies" has at all, when on completion of my A level (year 13 level) English and Economics courses I was eligible to enter straight into Stage 2 University papers. As a student with first hand experience and thorough knowledge of the course material (and examination process) of CIE, I can refute the claim that "Cambridge exams [do] not have any relevance to New Zealand" when almost all of the subjects I completed from Year Eleven to Year Thirteen had one or more topics relating to New Zealand. Take, for example, Art History, Drama or English, all of which have several choices of New Zealand artistic movements and painters, dramatic genres or authors, that the teacher can select for the class to study.
I also find it important to note, what Steve Maharey has failed to point out, the prestige of Cambridge exams, in particular that my entire syllabus and exam papers were written and marked by scholars from all over the world, one of which was my History teacher for two years. In a globalised society, this fact alone makes it impossible to believe that NCEA does a better job "preparing a person for the real world of work". I could not have asked for a better high school education, which I attribute equally to my school, Corran in Remuera, and to Cambridge exams.
CJWecke
I have grandchildren who entered university this year. All of them experienced that students with Cambridge examinations were ahead over NCEA entrants. Furthermore, all have stated that intelligent students resent the marking system which slows down competitiveness. Percentages would show more differences and encourage competition.
Esther
I am really surprised in post-colonial New Zealand that New Zealand schools are rushing to adopt a British qualification. A levels are being subjected to incredible scrutiny and criticism in the UK - where they are accused of lack of breadth, failing to distinguish capable students, grade inflation and failing to prepare students appropriately for University study. Despite all this adverse publicity, NZ schools choose them uncritically because they are a CHEAP alternative to NCEA. If schools wish to adopt an alternative course of study and clearly they need to, a far better educational choice is the IB Diploma.
Adrien de Croy
Someone needs to speak up for employers. What is the point of any qualification? It is generally not just for the personal edification of the student. It has a purpose. In many cases it's a prerequisite for something else. In most cases for employment. So surely it would make sense to have a qualifications system that can be understood by employers? Used by employers to gauge the talents of an individual. How many employers know how many achievements there are in NCEA for an average vs a top student? How does an employer know which missing unreported unachievements are pertinent? The mere fact that there is no such thing as failure with NCEA means the system lacks credibility with the real world, which is all too familiar with the realities of failure; particularly the failures that occur when you employ the wrong person for the job.
It means employers must instead develop their own tests to gauge suitability of employees, and in that respect, NCEA fails completely in a key objective. I can not comment for universities, but I do not imagine it has made selection of students any easier for entrance into say Med school. Most professional schools now have an intermediate year to weed out the people who shouldn't get through. Just means people have to waste a year because universities can't rely on the school qualifications any more.
Sam
How is NCEA meant to prepare students for the real world if it does not make you feel like you should be trying your hardest? NCEA makes you feel like the average is just fine.
Robert Glennie
I was at High School when the Unit Standards were being introduced. All NCEA seems to have done is grossly increase the workload of teachers and make exams unnecessarily complex for students. When I did School Certificate in 1996 I could not only find out obviously whether or not I passed, but be able to gauge whether I excelled, barely made the grade or failed by the traditional A, B, C, D, E grading system. It is also a useful guide for teachers to see the grades and know who may need more help subjects where their performance is marginal, or who needs a hurry on or alternative support.
During that time I was introduced to Unit Standards. They were being trialled in some courses at the time, and maybe they would have worked in some papers. However I think traditional Geography, History, the Sciences, Maths, English and so on should have been kept clear of this. A persons basic understanding of at least English and Mathematics is what will determine where they end up later on
Derrick Hodgson
Maharey is a total idiot if he believes NCEA is the best thing since sliced bread!! NCEA was implemented primarily because a couple of cultures were not achieving at school. Although the thought of giving "some" qualifications to all students that leave school admirable, he has successfully dumbed down our young people. Children can pass this stupid exam with sitting them as long as they get enough credits internally!! The Cambridge exam is a world renowned exam and is accepted all over the world. Tell me is NCEA accepted all over the world? No!! Maharey get a life and do us all a favour and resign.
Michael
Having completed NCEA Levels 1-3, I really can not see what the fuss is all about. I fully support the NCEA system of marking as a more "useful" means of establishing what a person can and can't do. Being given an arbitrary "letter" grade says nothing about ability in a tangible sense. "I got a B in calculus" says worlds less than "I can do this, and this, and do this especially well". To me, this is what puts NCEA marking ahead of traditional marking systems used in schools. For those not aware, there is a consistent correlation between NCEA achievement level and required degree of ability in a subject. "Achieved" level questions usually require only recall. "Merit" level questions require recall and a certain degree of processing, with known skills, to test understanding. "Excellence" level questions will combine recall, taught skills and unfamiliar elements. This combination tests important skills such as critical and analytical thinking - after all, it is these skills that make the arbitrary algorithms we learn in mathematics and science really applicable to the proverbial "real world". As for those who decry NCEA as encouraging people to "only do the bare minimum", my anecdotal experience has been that the people who do well, do well because of their own motivation, and this has nothing at all to do with the manner in which they are tested.
A choice of education
As a mother, I have had one daughter complete NCEA level one and two papers, which at the time I thought was a great start into the education system. I have since had that same daughter do the International Baccalaureate Diploma (IB), which is a full two year course and though she was in the top 5 per cent on NCEA found the IB very hard as NCEA did not prepare her for this level of paper. Only reason why we did not get her to do level three NCEA was because we moved to another country and she attended an international school. Which I am pleased to say she passed with a good result, and is more set up with opportunities in choices of Universities and employment. Which I am afraid that NCEA does not help in anyway. Now we have another daughter doing her IGCSEs which she sits her finals in May this year. With her doing this course of work though I admit lack of NZ history content but nothing else really different. She sits nine subjects, the course is over two years and when she passes can then go onto University without having to do an IB or NCEA level three. Given the choices that my daughters have had over these last two years at an International School, I am hoping that when we get home to NZ in December this year, our son will be able to attend a school that is offering the CIE choices of education, sorry to say that NCEA is not really a choice for education. As he will also be disadvantaged with our NZ system as he will have completed three years secondary school by the time we head home and he is only 13 years old and will have to go into year 10 which will be going backward for him. Another point to look at in NCEA is the marking schedule if you achieve a Excellence (1) and your friend achieves a Merit (1),there is no motivation for you to try hard as you would in your grades as you are marked the same. So personally from a parents point of view I would be looking at sending my child to a school that offers CIE (ICGSE) program and not just NCE.
Hannah
I have done both NCEA and Cambridge examations and now that I am in my first year at University, I feel that NCEA is the way to go. So far I have found that the way tests and essays are set out at University are very similar to the ways in which I have been taught to prepare and write in my NCEA exams. thus making the transition easier for myself. My results did not differ between the two exams and my levels of motivation did not change due to the different grading (ie. Achieved to Merit, or a b to an A.)however with NCEA I wanted to get as many points as possible. I enjoyed studying NCEA better as a lot of the information learnt was New Zealand based, like in History for example. When I was doing Cambridge, I often felt there was a stigma saying that it was harder and I was smarter. I think this was because Cambridge was often associated with private schools and in general these students do think they are better than everyone else (I have attended both public and private schools.) I feel NCEA is no easier or harder, and in a sense is better qas it can be tailored to suit the individuals needs, ie, maybe your better at writing exams then essays, NCEA deals with both these. NCEA is also cheaper by a couple of $100 dollars and this can affect a lot of families whom maybe have 2 or more kids. These are my views.
BD
The Minister should check out the NZ Herald website polls. Says it all.
Pete Simpson
Who does Maharey think he is kidding here? What do kids and their parents really want - the NCEA debacle with all the certainty of being "average" no matter what, or a decent qualification that indicates a clear ability in the core competencies required for a healthy career? I know what I want for my children, and it does not involve a Labour minister trying to puff his way out of the corner by blaming our fore fathers for being colonialist. Taking an external exam in the absence of a decent indigenous alternative says everything about the state of our current education system. Maharey, you are the weakest link! Labour, pack your red bags and get out you are fired!
Cecelia
I do not know why people keep saying it is a "dumbing down". For excellence in my subjects you have to show perception, insight or a striking and original effect. Only top students can get excellence or average students working at the very very top of their form. Scholarship has been provided to fulfil the needs of the intellectuals amongst our student population. Moreover, NCEA is a form of assessment, not a form of learning and kids still LEARN English, Maths and Science in the way in which they always did.
As a teacher I see many little faults in NCEA and wish we could have a big hui, iron them all out and produce a great assessment system ASAP. This isn't going to happen but adjustments are being made all the time. Look at the NZQA website or the Te Kete Ipurangi website to see the detailed information teachers are given about their subjects and the changing assessment specifications. When I read all the complaints I see some that I have to reluctantly agree with but a lot that arise out of a fear of change, a panic stirred up by the media and a cultural cringe about home grown qualifications. Yes, there are faults in NCEA but if you are thinking of moving your child from a good school just because it provides NCEA only, please think again. Do some research. Dont trust what you read in the paper. Negative stories about NCEA feed into an irrational public fear so make good front page hooks. They do not reflect the reality for most NZ schools.
Alan Wilkinson
NCEA credibility suffered greatly from the previous grossly, sometimes bizarrely, incompetent leadership at NZQA. It also seems difficult to create a "standards-based" examination that is not trivial, nitpicking and/or arbitrary. Rather than encourage less able students, NCEA's impact seems to have been to encourage female students to the significant detriment of male students. Frankly, I think it is a fine thing to have a free competition between exam systems. It may be that NZEA is eliminated or caters for a niche market. Let the customers decide.
Emma
As a New Zealander that studied in Singapore for all of my high school years, I absolutely back any switch to both Cambridge (GCSEs sat in 5th form) and International Baccalaureate (sat in 7th form) which I would like to point out are not entirely exam-based and certainly not for third world countries as another reader has suggested. Many top schools in the UK use these systems as well as international schools throughout the world (see www.uwcsea.edu.sg) and it has been developed by some of the finest teachers in the world. My education was vastly better for it and it prepared me well for university and my career, not only for learning involved but for the vast array of extra-curricular activities and global interests both programs cover. The NCEA is an absolute farce and no child of mine will ever sit it.
Ron Durham
I have just voted (for Cambridge course & exam). Years ago, I taught senior Chemistry in a UK secondary school. We used the course set (and marked) by Oxford Univ. Apart from the theory exam, my students also had to take part in a practical chemistry exam. Later, I taught chemistry in two NZ schools (we used the School Cert / UE / UB system). A much inferior course; no practical test. Hence I did not vote for it. Our senior students are the ones who will be leading NZ's economy in the future (at home and overseas). So it is imperative that our system is akin to international standards. I hear that many of our (NCEA-taught) university entrants are ill-equiped for tertiary studies! Most of our less-able secondary students would probably not be penalised by a switch to the Cambridge course.
Andrew Murphy
Parents and schools contemplating or pressuring for alternative exams to the NCEA should be aware of the context for those exams. The British Advanced (A) Level exams, which Cambridge International Examinations has as its "gold standard", are increasingly disparaged by parents, schools and the media in the UK, for two reasons. First, because of educational reforms in the UK toward continual formative assessment, rather than summative end-of-year examinations. These are quite similar to the reforms behind the NCEA, with similar criticisms of "watering down". Second, because A-level students are very specialised (typically three subjects only), or overworked if they wish to retain breadth. Thus many schools in the UK are seeking alternative examination options to the A-level, with the International Baccalaureate the most favoured. The challenge of the IB lies its requirements for compulsory second languages, and on community service, which place significant resource pressures on schools. These are not simple alternatives. The Cambridge system is well-recognised, but increasingly unpopular, and designed for an elite; the IB is highly regarded, but expensive to implement. Should not we be resourcing and guiding the NCEA system to be the best it can be, for all our kids?
Greg
The general perception about NCEA is that it does not provide a good system at measuring students' performance, while other systems like Cambridge do it very well. Often those who defend NCEA try to do it by discrediting Cambridge when in actual fact they know very little about it. Many people including Maharey try to discredit Cambridge (Intl General Cert for Secondary Education) by saying that it is used in the third world where there is no other system. I went through the whole IGCSE/Cambridge system in a highly academic American school in Asia with plenty of alternative systems. Cambridge was preferred by many because it is highly standardised and competitive - which is the reason why it's respected. After two years of Cambridge, international students continued to excel in American subjects (including Advanced Placement US college level subjects) in the two remaining high school years. I can hardly see people going through NCEA being prepared and capable of doing the same. If it does not prepare you for university, what is the point?
Wayne
Teachers are continually finding ways to improve student performance in NCEA. They do this by making it easier for students to pass. For example if students are having difficulty with a course which is basically an Achievement Standards course (E.g. Economics 301) they introduce Unit Standards into the course as they are easier for the students to pass. Students are then doing a mix of Achievement and Unit Standards. Teachers can control the passing in unit standards by giving students some assistance and by giving them several attempts. The system is designed to take academic challenges away. Many students take Unit Standard courses because they want to go down the easiest road possible. The NCEA system has no integrity, which had forced schools to go elsewhere.
Karen
I have read a lot of comments by people about NCEA and they seem to be along the following lines: NCEA encourages mediocrity; Students have too many chances to get it right, and so don't have to work hard; and there is no consistency. As a university lecturer, I have a slightly different perspective on this than a parent. The purpose of education is to encourage learning - not within a specific time frame or at a particular point in tim, but overall. I think NCEA probably does this is very effective for students who struggle in exam situations - the reality in life is that we all have text books and reference materials and absolute memory of specific facts is unnecessary.
That said, however, I think that lack of consistency is a serious problem, as it leads to a lack of confidence in our education system. Furthermore, the lack of a "not achieved" or failure grade is also a problem. As well as success, students need to learn about failure, as life contains a mix of success and failure. I would be happier with NCEA if it contained a larger number of grades including failure, so that both students, parents, educators and employers could measure their success.
Nicole
I was in the first year of NCEA the gunny pig. The teachers didnt seem to know what they were doing and neither did the students. i think they should rethink the marks for the students who sit NCEA in 2003. They should of stuck with school cert.
Kevin
It is obvious that the NZHerald has an agenda and is pushing one side of the argument in an emotive attempt to discredit what is in fact a very good system. You present two sides to the argument in your broadsheet yet online you highlight only one. You fill us with misinformation and present as a fact something that is highly debatable. Eaxm based is not necessarily better. It is 19th century designed and not designed for 21st century needs. The anti NCEA brigade generally focus on Cambridge (whereas anyone in the know will tell you if we are to use a foreign standard then Bacca Laureate is a better standard) Cambridge is an exam based system that basically covers the same things that NCEA does , but with a different focus. NCEA breaks down the components that make up a subject and measures performance accordingly. Cambridge via a single exam measures a final result that is less specific.Both (I.e. exam based and standard based) have there place depending on the individual. But NCEA is NZs standard. Cambridge is an English standard (Nothing to do with Cambridge University) designed mainly for off shore countries, generally "third world", who do not have a recognisable system of measurement. Thus Cambridge has a number of deficiencies which you continue to hide. Or could it be that you have jumped on a populist bandwagon and actually know very little factual information.
Jessie
When NCEA was first introduced, one of the governments taglines to win support for it was that it would be beneficial to employers. Instead of them knowing only that you passed maths with 60 per cent, they will know that you achieved algebra, got merit in calculus but did not achieve at trigonometry. Would the government please let us know what to put on our CVs - what employer really wants to wade through 2 or more pages of unit and achievement standards when a simple percentage would give them as much knowledge of a person's secondary schooling to call them back for an interview?
CZ Lee
Yes, I have confidence in NCEA. It might not be perfect, but I have enough faith in it to know that I am working towards something meaningful. Unlike many of my peers, I seek to make the NCEA work for me, and I have been rewarded for my efforts. Yes, the assessment system has been frustrating at times -- but I sought to understand how the system works, and the result was that I achieved with excellence 103 of the 120 credits I sat last year (and the remaining 17 with merit). The way it is marked can be ruthless, and this needs fixing, but it is well-founded in principle (students are rewarded for showing deep understanding and get what they deserve, not some number to rank against their peers) quite rightly recognises excellence. People who think it it has made them lazy are deluded—they are simply looking for an excuse to blame it on. NCEA rewards those that work hard, and I have no empathy those who cannot be bothered trying hard enough. Most people seem happy with laying uninformed criticisms against NCEA and have not bothered to understand it or keep up with the work done to improve it. Yes, it is in dire need of improvement, but that it what it is getting. I believe that at this rate, by 2010, we will have a respectable system, and by 2015, an established one, even if it looks a bit different from its current form. It's a long time, but good things (especially of this scope) take time. As for the people who take Cambridge well, I would like to see all those Cambridge-takers who think they're better than us achieve the results I have in NCEA. I really doubt most of them would get there.
Sharon Hunter
I have taught both NCEA and Cambridge subjects and I have a thirteen year old son at Avondale College. In my experience, the Cambridge system much more reflected the education system I was used to at high school and which stood me in very good educational and career stead, while NCEA, in my view focuses on dumbing down NZs population rather than lifting our educational standards. NCEA tries to create equality with a negative resulting return for New Zealand. I fully support Avondale College and its proposed return to the Cambridge system. Despite Avondale being an excellent school I would have seriously considering moving my son to a school, which offered the Cambridge system, if this move was not mooted.
Edwin Thompson
Thank God I am done with this atrocity.. it is an unfair system which favours students which dont try as hard. When I was trying hard to pass, I was getting low marks , so I decided to aim low with my studies just so I could do the bare minimum and pass with the same mark anyway. There is no incentive to work hard with NCEA and in the future it will create a lazy nation of workers who will opt for the "easy way out" of problems. This is something I find NCEA encourages.
Carol
NCEA is a joke. The students do not understand it, let alone us parents or even employers. My daughter did NCEA last year. When we received her results in January, we did not know if she had passed. We had to add up all her credits to check. After looking at some of her NCEA papers we could not understand the markings and had to look on the NCEA website. One exam she received 2 merits, 1 Excellence & 1 Achieved but her overall mark was "Achieved.", We believe if she was doing School "C" she would of received an "A" or "B" pass.
The whole system is a joke. Bring back passes that are easy for everyone to understand (A-F)or (50-100 per cent) rather than a useless A, M or E.
Kathryn
As a student who attended a school that offers both NCEA and the International Baccalaureate(IB) , I had the opportunity to sample both systems and decide for myself. I did NCEA level one in 5th form and IB in 6th and 7th form. I did well under both systems. However, NCEA flounders in comparison to the IB. IB is a much more well-rounded system that truly lets the student know just how well they are doing, working on percentage rather than the vague grades of A, M and E allows students to really evaluate their performance. It also has many other benefits. It is recognised internationally making it easier to get into overseas universities and is more realistic of the standard of work expected at university. Having completed my first year of university last year I can safely say that doing the IB gave me a significant advantage. 100-level papers at university are no more difficult than IB assignments, this made the transition into university (a system that is also percentage based) much more enjoyable. IB should be adopted NZ-wide, it is a great system that leaves NCEA for dead.
Sarah
I sat NCEA level 3 last year and am glad it is over. One of my geography papers had two questions! To pass you had to get at least achieved in both. For students (like myself) who got a merit or excellence in one question and failed the other on some sm
