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August 5, 2025 3 mins

A secondary teachers' union is dubious AI could adequately grade almost all school assessments within three years.

The Government plans to replace NCEA with a system emphasising literacy and numeracy more. 

The Education Minister is also now saying AI is already partly in use for marking - and NZQA is confident it could do almost all assessments by 2028.

PPTA President, Chris Abercrombie, says he isn't convinced.

"Seeing how the students write, understanding, reading between the lines - sometimes you have to figure out what the students are trying to say and I just don't know if AI is quite there yet to be able to do those kinds of things."

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Afternoon. AI could be marking school assessments once n c
A is completely scrapped. It's actually already being used to
mark n c A co requisite exams. Chris Abercrombie is
the president of the Post Primary Teachers Association and with.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Us right now. Hey, Chris good a, how are you good?
Thank yous?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
This's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
What was already been used in say in some aspects
nowt of the COREX. I'm not one hundred think convinced
AI is there yet to do all of the work,
but it's it's we're using it right now and it
seems to be successful.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
What do you think it can't do.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well? I mean, I've marked n c A exams. I've
done that in my time, and I just sort of
seeing how the students right understanding, you know, reading between
the lines, trying to you know, sometimes you have to
figure out what the student's trying to say. And I
just don't know if AI is quite the yet to
be able to do those kind of things.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
In the case where it is more simple and it's
like let's say, mathematics, i'd imagine would be much easier
where the ANSWER's got to be twenty six and there's
nothing else it can be. Apparently it's as good, if
not better than humans.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Have you found that? So again, we'll just going on
what enz QA said about doing the core exit. They've
been really happy with the success rate of it, and
they've been using human markers to check basically check their
I marking in the introm and they've been really happy
with the success of it. So I think there's definitely
some applications for it, but I just don't think it's

(01:22):
there yet for everything.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Is it the case that teachers will lose money because
they get paid for marking externals at the moment?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, so at the moment. So if a teacher applies
to be a marker, they get paid to do that
at the end of the year for the end of
year exams. So if they are taken away, then yet
there will be teachers will be losing money for that.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, any outcry about that just yet.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I haven't had any feedback from any of our members
yet about that, but we'll be interesting to see as
the years go on and we get close and close
at that time if that's something that's a concern.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Christ do you know what is surprising me is basically,
how well everything that Erica Stanford has done to this point,
everything has gone down with people. How is it because
generally unions will give a National education minister a really
hard time. Why is that not happening this time?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well, it's never about the party, it's about the policy.
And if you've got policy that listens to the sector
and then we're going to get behind it. There's some
concerns about some of this policy about implementation. It's going
to be its two years time frame. It's pretty tight,
so it's going to have to be really on point
and well resourced about to get there. But there's general
consensus that some changes need to be made to NCAA.

(02:30):
We're already on that progress, particularly around coherence of subject
balance between internals externals, and so this meets some of
those goals.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So you guys feel listened to by her.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Definitely at the moment. We do in this aspect and
a lot of it, so hopefully that continues.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Good stuff. Hey, Thanks Chris, Chris ab Abercrombie, PBTA President.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to
news talks that'd be from four pm weekdays or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio,
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