Nina Hood: Education Hub founder on NCEA achievement levels dropping since Covid-19 pandemic

NCEA achievement levels have dropped since the Covid-19 pandemic.

More students are leaving school with Level 3 pre-pandemic – but now achievement levels have dropped to where they were a decade ago.

The number leaving before their 17th birthday without Level 3 or university entrance is a major factor.

There have been steeper drops in Levels 1 and 2.

Education Hub founder Dr Nina Hood told Mike Hosking during Covid, children missed out on a lot of schooling and didn't have as much teaching.

“The result of that is that they didn’t build all of the foundational knowledge and skills that they needed. Those students are now coming through and sitting their Level 2 and Level 3 NCEA exams.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the damage that COVID did, as we've said many, many,
many times on this program, is turning out to be
far greater than many imagined and Education new numbers last
year one point one in four twenty five percent of
course school leavers are left without Level three or university entrants.
Prior to COVID, those figures were in fact rives in
terms of achievement, but it's been downhill ever since. Education
Hub founder doctor Nina hoodsback with us. Nina, good morning

(00:22):
to you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm assuming this is a surprise to nobody in education.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
No, I think a lot of us were anticipating something
similar to this happening.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
So what is it? Is it behavior related? Is it
how they teach, what they teach? What's happened?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think it's a whole combination of factors. One of
them is that during the COVID lockdowns, children were missing
out on a lot of schooling. They didn't have as
much teaching as they previously would have done, and the
result of that is that they didn't build all of
the foundational knowledge and skills that they needed. Those students
are now coming through and setting their Level two Level

(00:59):
three in the year exam and the result of that
lower level of teaching, not having so much time in
the classroom is having an impact. I think there are
probably a few other things going on as well. We
do have anecdotal data of students showing lower levels of motivation,
and of course we also know that there's a higher

(01:20):
proportion of young people leaving school before the age of seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Is there good news that if this is the COVID cohort,
then the non COVID cohort are either people who start
school after COVID no no different. In other words, the
back to normal schooling will be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
That would be an optimistic view. But if we think
about the impact of COVID, right that's going to have
that's long term, that's a decade to words, because you know,
we still have children who started school even at the
age of five, who didn't necessarily get all that foundational
teaching when they were in their first couple of years
at school. So there's still ground to make up for
those children as well coming through the system.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Are we outlies in the Western the oecd world? Is
everybody doing the same thing or are we different?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
We're not different. So there's definitely evidence coming out from
countries such as America from England that are showing very
similar statistics as well of this decline in academic achievement.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
See because here's the problem. When you leave at seventeen
and you haven't got level three and you haven't got
university entrance and you're stumbling and bumbling around in life,
that's you done. Sure to have you waking up one
day and going, well, I'll go train as something rather
than what happens to you nothing. I mean, now, I's
going to fix it the systems. I mean, you're out
of the system. It's gone. You got, aren't you? You
aren't in your own you are.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
And that's kind of the reasons why we need to
make sure that we get what techno in school's absolutely right,
because you know, once children do press out of young
people progress out of the school system, we have far
fewer leavers to be able to pull in order to
be up to bring them back into education, back into training.
So we really need to make sure that we're getting
it right before they leave school.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Right nine. Appreciate your time as always, Doctor Ninahood, the
Education Help Founders.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
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