7. Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) Link to this
to the Minister of Education
What is he doing to address National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) design issues that act as “disincentives to maximising student motivation and achievement” and “could have a negative long-term impact on persistence and endeavour factors seen as necessary for being successful in the future”?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) Link to this
The research the member is referring to found two areas of potential demotivation for NCEA. The first was the notion that 80 credits can be viewed as a maximum and not a minimum. The second was the fact that unit standards do not offer an excellence grade, which may demotivate students. Both of those issues are being looked at. The first is being looked at by trying to address the issue through awarding the certificate on the basis of the number of merit or excellence grades, and the second by considering whether unit standards should have excellence grades attached to them. Both of those issues have been looked at for some time by the Secondary Principals’ and Leaders’ Forum and the technical overview group, and I am awaiting some opinions from them.
What does the Minister plan to do about the large number of students who can, without record or penalty, show up to an exam, take a look at the questions, and decide they will not sit the exam—for instance, the 22 percent of the 29,000 pupils who entered for level 2 English this year, and who came along, looked at the exam, decided they might fail it, so walked out?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
I cannot imagine that there is not someone sitting on the other side of the House with a university degree who has not had the same experience, but what this boils down to, according to Luanna Meyers’ research, is that we are looking forward to joining up effective teaching with NCEA, to provide better motivation and understanding for students who are sitting these exams. That is what she suggests should be done, and that is what we will focus on.
Dr Ashraf ChoudharyHon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
As members in the House will know, motivation is an issue in any assessment system. It has been an issue in School Certificate and university entrance previously. We wanted to know whether there were issues in NCEA we needed to address. The research told us that NCEA is fundamentally sound. It allows schools to shape teaching around the way different students learn. Students, teachers, and parents were overwhelmingly positive about the impact of internal assessment on study habits, behaviour, and achievement. Students are very positive about the mix of internal and external assessment. As I noted earlier, there were two areas of motivation that we thought needed to be addressed from that research, and they are being addressed.
Hon Brian Donnelly Link to this
Can the Minister confirm that the report referred to shows that students perceive unit standards to be easier than achievement standards; and could it be that the decision to include pass/fail unit standards in NCEA, made after the breakdown of the National - New Zealand First Government, has added significantly to the reported impact of NCEA on student motivation?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
I can confirm that unit standards, of course, came into being under the previous National Government, which did not seem to feel the necessity for anything other than a pass/fail approach. That is one of the reasons we are looking at that now, to see whether we should join an excellence grade to that particular assessment process—and, once again, it is one of the ironies of having the National Party question the system when they invented the pass/fail system in the first place.
Judy TurnerDoes he accept that not all students are being given the same opportunities to gain NCEA credits, due to inconsistent policy that sees many schools encouraging their students to resubmit improved work to get a second chance at failed NCEA credits, while other schools prevent their students from having this opportunity; if so, will he now insist that NCEA assessment rules are applied universally?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
I do not know of any examples of students resubmitting the same work. If they did, all they would get is exactly the same response from the examiner. However, the system does allow for new work to be submitted, and that is something to be encouraged.
Has the Minister informed schools that the published results for NCEA on the New Zealand Qualifications Authority website include 163,000 void results, which makes a nonsense of the pass rates because they all count as failures for thousands of students who never sat the exam?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
Schools are fully informed and the results are on the website so that schools can have a transparent assessment system, unlike the one that the member seems to favour, which would be School Certificate where no one knew anything about anything.
Is the Minister aware that schools have not been told that there are 163,000 void results, and that I have had to extract this information from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority after it first denied having it, then delayed publishing it, and then I had to do the analysis to show the difference between two full sets of national results, so there is no transparency about thousands of students who enter for an exam, turn up, decide that it is too hard, do not sit it, and suffer no penalty?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
Given the common knowledge around schools that these figures exist, I just want to thank the member for his excellent work using the qualifications that he has gained over the years and making it available to schools that were not aware.
Why did the Minister, in answer to a previous question, say that this information was publicly available on the website and schools knew it, and then in answer to that question sneakily acknowledge that, in fact, it is not publicly available, that the Opposition extracted it, and that it is published nowhere—when is he going to start telling the truth in this House?
Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this
I said that my understanding is that all information is available. I have talked to many schools that understand exactly what Mr English is talking about. But if he wants to spend his days reanalysing figures, I thank him for doing that work.