Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: It's time to scrap NCEA for good

I wouldn't be surprised if Education Minister Erica Stanford actually ends up scrapping NCEA level one.

Because she's already concerned enough to order a review - and the review has come back slamming it, so she's got all the ammo she needs to pull the trigger if she wants to.

And I hope she does, because it has become apparent, especially in the last three years, that NCEA is a massively flawed system. And I don't think this is just a level one problem, I think there's problems across all three levels.

What's going on is that schools have had a gutsful and they're dropping it - fast. This year, only 87 percent of schools offered NCEA level one, next year only 75 percent will offer it. 

You can see this massive drop- and the problem is that the ones predominantly dropping it are the ones in the highest socio-economic areas.

That is a problem, because if it carries on like this, what we’re gonna end up with is rich kids and kids living in nice suburbs and going to to high decile schools coming out with decent qualifications like IB and Cambridge and everyone else coming out with junk NCEA.

And all that’s gonna do is create an education gap where only wealthier kids get the premium education qualification, and we don’t want that. That's not what this country is about, it's always been about everyone having the same opportunities.

If you’re a parent of an NCEA pupil, you don't need me to tell you this. The problem is that there’s no consistency. Your child can hand in an internal assessment to one teacher and give it an awesome grade - and another teacher can look at the same assessment, think it's mediocre and give it a mediocre grade.

It says a lot that employers don’t rate NCEA level one, increasing numbers of schools don't rate NCEA level one, the Education Review Office doesn't rate NCEA level one - and judging by the noises coming from the Education Minister, she doesn't rate NCEA level one.

I think it's time to scrap it - scrap the whole lot. From where I'm sitting, it looks like a failed experiment.

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the nca stuff that we were talking to Erica
Stanford about at the start of the program. I wouldn't
be surprised. In fact, I take a bit with you
right now that eric Is Stanford, the Education Minister's going
to scrap nca Level one because I can just see
the signs of it. She was already concerned enough to
order a review. She's ordered the review, the review has
come back. It's slammed NCAA Level one. So she's got
all the ammo that she needs to pull the trigger

(00:20):
if she if she wants to, and frankly, I hope
she does, because I think it's become apparent in the
last few years that NCA is a massively flawed system.
And I don't reckon this is just a level one problem.
I think it's a level two and three problem, but
it starts with level one. So that's what we're dealing with.
What's going on as schools. I had had a gutsful
of this nonsense, and they're dropping it. They're dropping it fast.
Right this year, only eighty seven percent of schools offered

(00:42):
NCAA Level one. Next year only seventy five percent of schools.
And so you can see this massive drop down. And
the problem here is that the ones predominantly dropping it
are the ones in the higher socioeconomic areas. Now that
is a problem because if it carries on like that,
what we're going to end up with is rich kids
and kids living in nice suburbs and going to high
dess our schools getting a better qualification, maybe coming out

(01:03):
with ib maybe coming out with Cambridge, but coming out
with a decent qualification, and everyone else and all the
other suburbs, the poor suburbs and the normal suburbs, are
going to come out with junk NCEEA at the end
of their schooling. And all that is going to do
if we let that continue going on for years is
can create an education gap where basically you've got rich
kids getting premium education qualifications that are recognized around the

(01:26):
world's world, and then everybody else coming up with this
nonsense that nobody recognizes. And that is not what this
country is about, right, because this country is actually about
all of us getting a decent education and the ability
to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps. Now, if you're
the parent of an NCA pupil, you do not need
me to tell you this. The problem is there's no consistency.
So your kid could hand in an essay to one

(01:47):
teacher or an internal assessment to one teacher, and the
teacher could go, oh, that's awesome, here's an awesome grade.
Or they could hand it into another teacher at another school.
Teacher in this but a mediocre, mediocre grade for you.
And it says a lot that employers don't rate inn
CEA level one, that increasing numbers of schools don't rate
in CEA level one, that the Education Review Office doesn't
rate in CEA level one. I, as a parent, do

(02:09):
not rate in CEA level one. And judging by the
noises coming from the Education Minister, I'm not getting the
feeling she rates in CEA level one. So I think
it's time to scrap it. I think scrap the whole lot,
because from where I'm sitting, it looks to me like
a failed experiment.