Home > Our Publications > New Zealand Outlook > 2002 > March

New Zealand has a fantastic education system and this year it's even more exciting with the introduction of the new National Certificate for Educational Achievement. This new system is a makeover for secondary school qualifications and combines traditional examinations with rigorous internal assessment. In this article, Education Minister Trevor Mallard (left) explains his support for the NCEA.

THIS year sees the beginning of an exciting new system. A system that will challenge our most gifted and talented students but will also provide a meaningful and worthwhile assessment for students who in the past, through not passing school certificate, left school with nothing to show for their achievements.
Call me an optimist, but I'm of the view that every young New Zealander has potential in some areas. We should celebrate the achievements of talented students. But as a country we can't afford to do that at the expense of ignoring everybody else.
The traditional examination system labelled a person as either a success or a failure. A major fault was that it failed to give employers or tertiary institutions a decent picture of a young person they were considering for employment or further training.
What good is a carpenter who cannot measure? If they passed School Certificate Mathematics it was assumed they could measure, but there was nothing in the certificate at the end of the year that showed that to be true.
The labour market has changed dramatically over the last quarter century. Jobs previously requiring no literacy skills now demand the ability to operate a computer. Our school system needs to hold on to those students who used to leave the day they turned 15, and arm them with worthwhile and practical qualifications.
For the more academic students, the NCEA will provide a greater challenge in fostering time management, problem solving and project management skills. There will continue to be examinations at the end of the year but the NCEA provides a good balance between rigorous internal and external assessment (ie examinations).
A survey of employers who have actively recruited university graduates rated 'sound academic achievement' third in their list of top ten skills they sought. Above it were 'strong verbal and interpersonal communication skills' and 'problem solving skills' - both of which I believe can be better developed and reported through the NCEA.
Examinations are a useful way of testing some knowledge and skills well, and that's why they will still be a part of the new system. But by strengthening the mix of examinations and internal assessment we get the best of both worlds.
Schools conduct internal assessments at Years 11, 12 and 13 but there is very little external checking of marking. For NCEA, all subjects will have internal marking checked at every level, every year.
A key principle of standards based assessment means that it is the standard that is fixed and constant. The variable can be the context for learning a skill or the way that a group of students may learn a skill. In this way, learning can be tailored to suit the needs of individuals and local communities while the assessment is reported at a national level.
But one of the crunch issues surrounding internal assessment is how many chances to you give a student at getting a mark?
The answer is that schools should include provision for no more than one further reportable assessment opportunity (extra chance) within their assessment policy for NCEA achievement standards. This is in the best interests of both teaching and learning.
The further assessment opportunity is for students who have not achieved the standard at the first attempt but have had the opportunity for more learning to take place.
This decision will be reviewed after three years as teachers' confidence in, and familiarity with assessment for the NCEA will have increased by that time. This decision does not limit the ability of a school to use assessment as a normal element of the teaching and learning process.
Indeed some schools already successfully use such a process in order to give feedback on an individual's progress towards achieving the standard and that will no doubt continue.
With NCEA, we can keep up with other countries. NCEA is consistent with assessment practices overseas, in countries that we traditionally compare ourselves with. Europe, Canada, various states in the USA and our nearest neighbour Australia, all use standards based assessment to report learning in school.
There is a lot of information available to prepare families for NCEA. It is a big change for students in some schools. But as a country, we can't afford not to change if we want to educate our young people to meet the demands of the changing world.