National Certificate of Educational Achievement—Pass Rates

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

The member continues, I think, to confuse how NCEA actually works. What students get is a record of learning that tells us how many credits they have achieved. Thirteen percent of students leave school with few or no qualifications that are going to do them any good at all. But the rest of them who do have a record of learning can make use of that record to either progress on to level 2 or 3, or perhaps leave school and start at, say, the local bakery on some kind of industry-related qualification, making use of what they have achieved, and as demonstrated in their record of learning. That is how the system works.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

NCEA sets clear standards, recognises excellence, and delivers meaningful information to parents and employers. Under NCEA, students accumulate credits that build towards formal qualifications over a number of years. A major advantage of NCEA is that those who leave with partial attainment can still use their credits to build towards a qualification. In 2004 nearly 80 percent of students in this cohort did just that, putting their credits towards apprenticeships and polytechnic courses. The latest figures show that students are attaining higher levels of achievement under NCEA, that far more students are leaving school with a university entrance qualification, that more students are staying in school until year 13, and that 67 percent of school-leavers are achieving beyond level 1.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

The answer to the last question is that, yes, Māori have been frequently asked to give ideas as to how this might be addressed. For example, the Hui Taumata that will take place in October will bring together to Taupō virtually every educator involved in Māori education to discuss that very issue. I can give the member some encouragement by saying that there have been big improvements amongst Māori and Pacific students. For example, in 2002, the first year of NCEA, 35 percent of Māori students left school in year 11. That figure is now 23 percent. In other words, we are beginning to see, in terms of retention and achievement, improvements as demonstrated by NCEA.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

The research shows that the major problem for boys tends to be in the area of creative reading and creative writing. As they do less well in those two areas of work, that tends to spread across their other subject areas. So we know that if we focus on literacy—which is what we are doing, spreading around $52 million now in that area—we can begin to lift boys’ performance, and the evidence so far is that that is exactly what is happening.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

I would have to go back and check those figures, because once again I am not sure whether the member is comparing apples with apples. His comparison usually is around some kind of equivalence between NCEA and School Certificate, and I want to point to the ways those errors can easily be stated. For example, the member in his press release says that 2,200 school leavers in Wellington left with “just level 1 NCEA, or less”. In fact, the number, in the Wellington City area, was 628, so members can see how easily those numbers can be confused.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

Because more students are leaving school with qualifications! Once again, I will take an illustration of one of the things the member is doing all the time. He is forgetting that in NCEA, students accumulate credits. So, for example, one of the things the member likes to use is literacy, and he uses a snapshot of 2004 or 2005, forgetting, of course, that students from those years stay in the system and achieve at a higher level of literacy later on. So very few students now are leaving school with literacy issues. The percentage is down to about 12 percent now, which is a major improvement. In other words, the member needs to use the system rather than try to compare it all the time with a non-existent system—namely, School Certificate.

Hon STEVE MAHAREY Link to this

I am very pleased that we are now seeing in lower-decile schools, and particularly amongst students who traditionally did not achieve, students who are establishing a record of learning. I can pick two local schools, Wainuiōmata High School and Porirua College, that traditionally were not schools with a high academic record. Both schools now report vastly improved performance. At Porirua College, for example, students have moved on to achieve scholarships, in a way they never did in the past. That is where I come back to the member. He wants all the time to superimpose a norm-referenced system over a standards-based system, and try to make an unfair comparison between the two. He needs to agree to the notion that NCEA provides for students who formerly had no record of learning at all—because School Certificate did not provide that. Those students now have it, and now can use it as a basis for further learning.