July 19, 2025 • 11 mins
The Government's considering a major decision over the future of NCEA following a damning report on the qualification.
One of the problems highlighted is that courses can be structured around those perceived to be easier to gain credits.
Another is around the lack of external exams.
Education Minister Erica Stanford says the current education system has been 'massaged' to meet levels of declining student achievement - and that needs to change.
"That's not what we want for this country and that's not what we want for our kids."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talksb SO.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
As I mentioned changes could be on the cards for
NCAA Following a damning reporter to the National Secondary School Qualification,
A government briefing to Education Minister Erica Stanford in June
raised significant concerns. The document highlighted particular red flags around
the amount of flexibility built into NCAA. To talk us
through the report and next steps, Education Minister Ericus Stanford
(00:34):
is with me. Thanks so much for your time this morning. Erica,
good morning, Good morning, How are you really good? Thanks?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Can I ask first up what initiated this briefing?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
But we've been doing quite a bit of work on
nca in the last little while. It was really when
I became the minister. I had conversations with many principles
who said to me, look, the rollout of Level one
has been a disaster. We're not ready, we don't have
the exempt plars, we don't know what to teach. And
you remember I got my ministerial warrant on the twenty
(01:05):
seventh of November and we were well past the point
of no return in twenty twenty four to continue on
with rolling out Level one, the new Level one the
changes of previous government had made. So what I did
was quickly fix up as much as I could and
give the teachers the exemplars and learning areas they needed.
But what I did ask ERO to do the Education
(01:28):
Review Office was do an investigation and a report into
what happened. How do we avoid making the same mistake
again when we make changes to level two and three
as the previous government we're planning on doing. So they
did that report, but it had a number of concerns
raised about the whole of NCA, not just Level one,
(01:52):
not just the rollout, but the structural makeup of it.
And it had many questions about whether or not people
understood it, the fact that it was very hard to
make good choices about courses, and that there wasn't good
coherent packages of learning. So it raised a whole load
of questions we've been trying to answer over the last
year or so.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No one understands Erica, Hey, do you.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Know what my husband? My husband said to me a
degree and I don't understand it.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
In anticipation of talking to you today, I was actually
talking to my son yesterday who's in his first year
of university, and we were talking about his experience with
NCAA and even when he got confused about how it
worked and why things were the way they were. Anyway,
we'll talk about that later, but look, flexibility does seem
to be a key issue that it allows credit accumulation
over meaningful learning. And were talking about students getting credits
for life skills rather than maybe putting together, you know,
(02:44):
an academic qualification that leads them in a sort of
a career direction.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But I can understand why we went down the path
of flexibility. We thought that, you know, many years ago
when we implemented this, that it would allow students to
build different packages of learning that was tailored to them.
But it has gone so far in the opposite direction.
All these unintended consequences where what you expect, and I
(03:12):
think every parent expects if your child is sitting English,
it doesn't matter which school they're in. They're sitting English.
It's all the same and they have a coherent package
of learning and a deep understanding of English. But it
turns out that that's not the case. Schools have many
different subjects. Sorry are credits that they can choose from
(03:34):
or standards they're called many different standards they can choose
from to put together English. So English in the Cargoo
versus Northland could look completely different. And in fact, you
don't have to do a certain number of standards in
anyone subject to say you have done English. So it
turns out that you can do a standard here and
(03:55):
a standard from history, and a standard from geography and
a standard over here and pull them all together and
say you have NZEA. But the question that the ERRO
and now MZQA have raised is that we are what
we are missing as a coherent package of learning in
any one subject area, real deep understanding of geography or
history or calculus. And look, some schools will offer great
(04:19):
all four standards in any one subject, but there are
other schools who may not, and that's where you get
this massive lack of consistency. So it depends where you
went to school.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Absolutely. We're also concerned that students have been avoiding or
skipping external exams because they've got the credits that they
need through internal assessment. Is our external exams at the
end of the year arether important.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
They're very important. I mean it's a really robust way
of assessing student knowledge, and you know, with the event
advent of AI and and other things, it is really
important that we do have an exam situation where there's
no access to anything online. It's you know, the knowledge
that you've gained over the year being assessed in affair incoherent,
(05:06):
consistent way. And look, there will always be students who
need a bit of extra help. We call those special
assessment conditions reader writers extra time because they may have
particular learning difficulties. MOS are all built in, but it
is universally seen as a very good way of assessing
student knowledge and skills.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Do you think that schools would be happy to lose
that flexibility because some of them, you know, it has
enabled them to use the system to get the best
looking results in some cases.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Look potentially yes, but that is a basically what's happened
over time. You can see our results right for the
last twenty twenty five years have been plummeting and reading,
writing and maths in every different thing you look at,
teaser pearls, terms, any internal thing. So essentially what schools
(05:59):
are trying to do is do their very best to
get kids across the line and get them a qualification,
but the question has to be actually, we have to
aim higher than that for our kids. And that's why
our reform package has been on back to basics, reading,
writing and maths, a world leading curriculum that's year by
year that progresses children through learning. We're going to be
(06:19):
assessing them twice a year from next year right from
year three to make sure that they're on track with
their learning and progressing how they should. What that means
is in the future we should be able to have
a very robust, internationally comparable national qualification because our kids
are at curriculum. I think what's happened over time is
our curriculum has been massaged to meet the needs of
(06:40):
declining student achievement. And that's what we want for this
country and it's not what we want for our kids.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, you yourself have children sitting NCAA, as do
I and many of our listeners. As a mother, how
do you feel being told that your child's qualification has
significant issues?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Look, I look, you're right. I still have two children
who are sitting in NCAA and I still believe and
I had options. My Michael School does ib as well,
and we chose not to do. N CEA is still
a good qualification. It's just not consistent, and it can
be massively improved. And that's the key. I don't want
(07:17):
to stand here today and say, Lo, NCAA is terrible.
It's still a very good qualification. Many students still end
up in high quality universities all over the world. Many
people are still choosing it over other qualifications. But there
is a lot that we can do to strengthen it,
to make it more consistent, to make parents understand it.
(07:38):
I mean, why on earth can we not go back
to a markout of one hundred? For goodness sake. ABC,
I've got my children coming home saying I only had
to answer two of the questions to get excellence, And say,
what do you mean you didn't have to answer all
of the questions. Oh, I don't know, just the excellence one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, at least you knew what an E was when
my first chime came home. When I got an E,
I went, oh, my goodness, this is a disaster. It
was so far behind. And then it was explained to
me that meant excellence. Look, I'm pleased to hear you
say that, because I don't want to panic parents about this.
As I said, my children are through this, and I'm
seeing a whole lot of young people who have got
NCAA qualifications go on and do whatever that they wanted
(08:13):
to do and succeed and do really well. So it
is a matter of kind of now you know, sorting
it out. So would you get rid of NCAA completely
or do you feel that it can be fixed.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
So everything is on the table at the moment, and
I have got an amazing group of principles from around
the country who are doing this work for me. They've
been grapped questions for the last few months. We've been
throwing all sorts of things at I owe them a
huge amount of the work they've done, but they have
looked at everything. They've looked at Arrow's report, they've looked
at the results from NSQA, and they will be helping
(08:47):
us to make decisions. So we're not at a point
yet we were ready to tell the world where we're heading,
but we're pretty close. I think the key thing for
me is to say to parents, we want you to
have a real sense of pride and codence that our
national qualification is setting your children up with the skills
(09:10):
and knowledge that they need to succeed in the future,
and that they can go anywhere in the world and
do anything. I want you to understand how it works,
and I want you to know that no matter where
your child goes to school, which school we're at, that
the curriculum is the same, that it drives what children
are learning and assessed against.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Can I suggest then that it doesn't really matter what
the structural makeup. Is the most important thing to achieve
that is making sure that we invest in the people
who deliver the program, which is the teachers who need
to be supported and trained properly, and that's where the
focus needs to be.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, you're absolutely right, And one of the key findings
from Aero's to report last year was that there wasn't
enough investment in our teachers. There wasn't enough preparation and
enough profession learning and development and enough time for them
to get ready for the new NCAA changes to level one.
So anything that we do needs to be phased in,
(10:06):
needs to be very well resourced, and teachers need time
and professional learning and development to get used to it.
And I think the key thing I think most people
don't really realize that we don't actually have a national
qualification that goes all out to year thirteen that drives
what's being taught. What's being taught at school is just
whatever the standard is that the schools choose to do
(10:29):
in any one subject that drives what's being taught. I
think a key change I've always talked about is we
must have a national qualification and it's sorry curriculum and
each subject that goes all ay out to year thirteen
that we're all teaching, and that will be a big chef.
We're in the middle of writing it at the moment,
but you're absolutely right. We have to very well resource
(10:50):
it and provide all of the professional learning development teachers need.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Erica Stanford, thanks so much for your time this morning.
Really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talksb SO.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
As I mentioned changes could be on the cards for
NCAA Following a damning reporter to the National Secondary School Qualification,
A government briefing to Education Minister Erica Stanford in June
raised significant concerns. The document highlighted particular red flags around
the amount of flexibility built into NCAA. To talk us
through the report and next steps, Education Minister Ericus Stanford
(00:34):
is with me. Thanks so much for your time this morning. Erica,
good morning, Good morning, How are you really good? Thanks?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Can I ask first up what initiated this briefing?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
But we've been doing quite a bit of work on
nca in the last little while. It was really when
I became the minister. I had conversations with many principles
who said to me, look, the rollout of Level one
has been a disaster. We're not ready, we don't have
the exempt plars, we don't know what to teach. And
you remember I got my ministerial warrant on the twenty
(01:05):
seventh of November and we were well past the point
of no return in twenty twenty four to continue on
with rolling out Level one, the new Level one the
changes of previous government had made. So what I did
was quickly fix up as much as I could and
give the teachers the exemplars and learning areas they needed.
But what I did ask ERO to do the Education
(01:28):
Review Office was do an investigation and a report into
what happened. How do we avoid making the same mistake
again when we make changes to level two and three
as the previous government we're planning on doing. So they
did that report, but it had a number of concerns
raised about the whole of NCA, not just Level one,
(01:52):
not just the rollout, but the structural makeup of it.
And it had many questions about whether or not people
understood it, the fact that it was very hard to
make good choices about courses, and that there wasn't good
coherent packages of learning. So it raised a whole load
of questions we've been trying to answer over the last
year or so.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
No one understands Erica, Hey, do you.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Know what my husband? My husband said to me a
degree and I don't understand it.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
In anticipation of talking to you today, I was actually
talking to my son yesterday who's in his first year
of university, and we were talking about his experience with
NCAA and even when he got confused about how it
worked and why things were the way they were. Anyway,
we'll talk about that later, but look, flexibility does seem
to be a key issue that it allows credit accumulation
over meaningful learning. And were talking about students getting credits
for life skills rather than maybe putting together, you know,
(02:44):
an academic qualification that leads them in a sort of
a career direction.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
But I can understand why we went down the path
of flexibility. We thought that, you know, many years ago
when we implemented this, that it would allow students to
build different packages of learning that was tailored to them.
But it has gone so far in the opposite direction.
All these unintended consequences where what you expect, and I
(03:12):
think every parent expects if your child is sitting English,
it doesn't matter which school they're in. They're sitting English.
It's all the same and they have a coherent package
of learning and a deep understanding of English. But it
turns out that that's not the case. Schools have many
different subjects. Sorry are credits that they can choose from
(03:34):
or standards they're called many different standards they can choose
from to put together English. So English in the Cargoo
versus Northland could look completely different. And in fact, you
don't have to do a certain number of standards in
anyone subject to say you have done English. So it
turns out that you can do a standard here and
(03:55):
a standard from history, and a standard from geography and
a standard over here and pull them all together and
say you have NZEA. But the question that the ERRO
and now MZQA have raised is that we are what
we are missing as a coherent package of learning in
any one subject area, real deep understanding of geography or
history or calculus. And look, some schools will offer great
(04:19):
all four standards in any one subject, but there are
other schools who may not, and that's where you get
this massive lack of consistency. So it depends where you
went to school.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Absolutely. We're also concerned that students have been avoiding or
skipping external exams because they've got the credits that they
need through internal assessment. Is our external exams at the
end of the year arether important.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
They're very important. I mean it's a really robust way
of assessing student knowledge, and you know, with the event
advent of AI and and other things, it is really
important that we do have an exam situation where there's
no access to anything online. It's you know, the knowledge
that you've gained over the year being assessed in affair incoherent,
(05:06):
consistent way. And look, there will always be students who
need a bit of extra help. We call those special
assessment conditions reader writers extra time because they may have
particular learning difficulties. MOS are all built in, but it
is universally seen as a very good way of assessing
student knowledge and skills.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Do you think that schools would be happy to lose
that flexibility because some of them, you know, it has
enabled them to use the system to get the best
looking results in some cases.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Look potentially yes, but that is a basically what's happened
over time. You can see our results right for the
last twenty twenty five years have been plummeting and reading,
writing and maths in every different thing you look at,
teaser pearls, terms, any internal thing. So essentially what schools
(05:59):
are trying to do is do their very best to
get kids across the line and get them a qualification,
but the question has to be actually, we have to
aim higher than that for our kids. And that's why
our reform package has been on back to basics, reading,
writing and maths, a world leading curriculum that's year by
year that progresses children through learning. We're going to be
(06:19):
assessing them twice a year from next year right from
year three to make sure that they're on track with
their learning and progressing how they should. What that means
is in the future we should be able to have
a very robust, internationally comparable national qualification because our kids
are at curriculum. I think what's happened over time is
our curriculum has been massaged to meet the needs of
(06:40):
declining student achievement. And that's what we want for this
country and it's not what we want for our kids.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I mean, you yourself have children sitting NCAA, as do
I and many of our listeners. As a mother, how
do you feel being told that your child's qualification has
significant issues?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Look, I look, you're right. I still have two children
who are sitting in NCAA and I still believe and
I had options. My Michael School does ib as well,
and we chose not to do. N CEA is still
a good qualification. It's just not consistent, and it can
be massively improved. And that's the key. I don't want
(07:17):
to stand here today and say, Lo, NCAA is terrible.
It's still a very good qualification. Many students still end
up in high quality universities all over the world. Many
people are still choosing it over other qualifications. But there
is a lot that we can do to strengthen it,
to make it more consistent, to make parents understand it.
(07:38):
I mean, why on earth can we not go back
to a markout of one hundred? For goodness sake. ABC,
I've got my children coming home saying I only had
to answer two of the questions to get excellence, And say,
what do you mean you didn't have to answer all
of the questions. Oh, I don't know, just the excellence one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Well, at least you knew what an E was when
my first chime came home. When I got an E,
I went, oh, my goodness, this is a disaster. It
was so far behind. And then it was explained to
me that meant excellence. Look, I'm pleased to hear you
say that, because I don't want to panic parents about this.
As I said, my children are through this, and I'm
seeing a whole lot of young people who have got
NCAA qualifications go on and do whatever that they wanted
(08:13):
to do and succeed and do really well. So it
is a matter of kind of now you know, sorting
it out. So would you get rid of NCAA completely
or do you feel that it can be fixed.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
So everything is on the table at the moment, and
I have got an amazing group of principles from around
the country who are doing this work for me. They've
been grapped questions for the last few months. We've been
throwing all sorts of things at I owe them a
huge amount of the work they've done, but they have
looked at everything. They've looked at Arrow's report, they've looked
at the results from NSQA, and they will be helping
(08:47):
us to make decisions. So we're not at a point
yet we were ready to tell the world where we're heading,
but we're pretty close. I think the key thing for
me is to say to parents, we want you to
have a real sense of pride and codence that our
national qualification is setting your children up with the skills
(09:10):
and knowledge that they need to succeed in the future,
and that they can go anywhere in the world and
do anything. I want you to understand how it works,
and I want you to know that no matter where
your child goes to school, which school we're at, that
the curriculum is the same, that it drives what children
are learning and assessed against.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Can I suggest then that it doesn't really matter what
the structural makeup. Is the most important thing to achieve
that is making sure that we invest in the people
who deliver the program, which is the teachers who need
to be supported and trained properly, and that's where the
focus needs to be.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, you're absolutely right, And one of the key findings
from Aero's to report last year was that there wasn't
enough investment in our teachers. There wasn't enough preparation and
enough profession learning and development and enough time for them
to get ready for the new NCAA changes to level one.
So anything that we do needs to be phased in,
(10:06):
needs to be very well resourced, and teachers need time
and professional learning and development to get used to it.
And I think the key thing I think most people
don't really realize that we don't actually have a national
qualification that goes all out to year thirteen that drives
what's being taught. What's being taught at school is just
whatever the standard is that the schools choose to do
(10:29):
in any one subject that drives what's being taught. I
think a key change I've always talked about is we
must have a national qualification and it's sorry curriculum and
each subject that goes all ay out to year thirteen
that we're all teaching, and that will be a big chef.
We're in the middle of writing it at the moment,
but you're absolutely right. We have to very well resource
(10:50):
it and provide all of the professional learning development teachers need.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Erica Stanford, thanks so much for your time this morning.
Really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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