Chris Abercrombie: PPTA President on changes on the way for NCEA

A teachers union is hoping the Government keeps the bulk of NCEA. 

A major announcement on the future of the secondary qualification is expected to be imminent.

It's understood public consultation will be launched on proposed changes -- in which teachers and parents can give feedback.

PPTA President Chris Abercrombie told Ryan Bridge he wants improvements - not for it to be thrown out entirely. 

He says there are some issues with coherency around subjects and the structure of vocational pathways. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big announcement this morning on n CEA and its future.
Will it be scrapped entirely? Will parts of it be kept?
We'll find out by nine o'clock this morning. Consultation will
be launched on up the wazoo. You can imagine the teachers,
the parents, industry will have a chance to have a say, Chris,
have a Crombie is the PPTA president, Chris, good morning,
Good morning. Have you seen what.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
The plan is? No? No, I'm not getting a briefing
until a weave it beforehand.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Okay, And what do you think they're going to do
is throw it in the bin and start again or
keep some bits.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, there's some really good bits to it, and so
hopefully they build on the system. Of course, it's not perfect.
We know this, and in recent years has been really
whitet agreement on improvements needed. So we hope we don't
throw it out and we just improve on what we need.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
What's the biggest thing that needs improvement? Is it the
you know, the consistency depending on what you're studying, or
is it the way that things are assessed.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's a bit of both. So we need we know,
we need a bit more coherency and around subjects and
again development in that area. And we also just need
to weave a more issue in making clear vocational pathways
and just a simpler structure.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
So what does that mean making clear the vocational pathways.
If you don't want to go to university, then there's
something else for you to do, and this is how you.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Do it exactly. So at the moment, it's really reliant
on schools and their relationship with local polytechs, businesses, et cetera.
There's no real clear national pathways and so someone around
that area would be fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Getting the schools closer to the polytechs.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, it could be poly techs, could be business, could
be other things. Schools do amazing things through gateway programs
and other work experience programs, but there's no real national
policy around. This is all schools leaving it up to
themselves in their relationships with individual businesses polytechs. If they
happened to have one in their community.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
What's the one thing you don't want them to go near.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
We'd hate for it to scrap the standards based assessment
because at the heart of it, it's about rewarding students
what for what they know and they can demonstrating their knowledge,
and they have all opportunities to succeed the older system
which had a built in failure rate. We don't want
to see that happen.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Chris, appreciate your time. Chris abercrombi ppt A.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Prison For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen
live to News Talks at B from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio