The Big League Podcast look over the Warriors' loss to the Dolphins
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon talks to Ryan Bridge after NZ was slapped with a 15% tariff by US. Video / Herald NOW
Newstalk ZB's South Island News Director Claire Sherwood on the senior Labour MP standing down and a new robotic lab for Christchurch.
World first research by Auckland University shows effect of fidgeting on the brain function of people with ADHD. Video / Herald NOW
Business with 2degrees for Monday 4th August. Video / Herald NOW
AT Parking Services group manager John Strawbridge responds after mobility permit holders were fined after new software didn't pick up their permits.
Martin Snedden speaks to Ryan Bridge on Herald NOW about the Online Casino Gambling (OCG) Bill and its apparent lack of funding for grassroots sports.
NZ Herald Deputy Political Editor Adam Pearse speaks to Ryan Bridge on Herald NOW about New Zealand's response to a 15% US tariff, the National Party conference and changes at NCEA
Liam Lawson finishes 8th at the Hungarian Grand Prix and Black Caps pace bowler Nathan Smith is ruled out of the final Cricket test against Zimbabwe. Video / Herald NOW
Herald NOW weather for Monday, 4th August 2025. Video / Herald NOW
Green Party co-Leader Chlöe Swarbrick on government plans to overhaul conservation land law.
Trade Minister Todd McClay intends to negotiate the 15% trade tariff imposed by Donald Trump and a major announcement over the future of NCEA is expected. Video / NZ Herald
Reporter Loyalty is at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Kōtuku, where the tamariki are tending the chickens and gardens with the help of George Washington himself.
Retail reporter Tom Raynel talks to two former New World Victoria Park workers who allege ageism in Foodstuffs hiring process. Video / Alyse Wright, Jason Dorday
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RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Education Minister David Seymour says NCEA changes will challenge students more
Associate Education Minister David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Associate Education Minister David Seymour says changes to NCEA will challenge students more, which he believes can only be a positive thing. The government announced sweeping changes to school qualifications on Monday, including the end of the NCEA system that has been in place for more than 20 years. The National Certificate of Educational Achievement will be gone by 2030, replaced by a basic literacy and numeracy award at Year 11, and the Certificate of Education and Advanced Certificate of Education at Years 11 and 12. The new certificates would be standards-based, like the NCEA is, meaning every student passes if they demonstrate the required knowledge or skills, but they would have to study at least five complete subjects and pass four of them to get their certificate. Seymour said students wanted to be challenged more, and the overhaul to the NCEA system will provide that. "I was really interested to listen ... there were some students who seem to make a virtue of NCEA's easiness, as they saw it," he told First Up. "But there was a strong current running through those comments from the students. There was actually a desire for a bit more challenge. "One of the things that will happen is that by having a subject-based system, where there's a body of knowledge that you have to learn, where there's exams that are objectively assessed, I think that that extra challenge is going to be there. "I think for those students and for the country as a whole, that can only be a positive thing." Seymour said the only real predictor of where New Zealand's going to be in 30 years' time is the amount of knowledge that is passed from one generation to the next. He said there is an element of the European system in the changes. "There, they have more vocational pathways and I'm not saying that we're introducing a particular country system, but there's a hint of it. "That if you're somebody who wants to do something more practical, and I look at the prospects of people coming out of their studies, and I often joke, I wish I'd been smart enough to choose being an electrician over an electrical engineer, because it's those tradies that everyone's so short of." Seymour sympathised with educators having to adapt to a new policy change, to allow everyone impacted to catch up. But he is confident support will be on hand as they map out the overhaul. "I'm sure that as the implementation rolls out, that support will be at the forefront of the government's mind," he said. "But we haven't got to the point right now, we're just consulting on the shape of it. What I would say is that, because we are going back to something that is subject-based, I think some people might say it's a bit more prescriptive, then it's going to be clearer to educators, this is what the curriculum is. This is how it's assessed." Seymour said there will be less work do "creating bespoke pathways". "I think that's something generally, that after the New Zealand curriculum came out in 200 - since we've had a unit-based assessment for most of this century - it's actually been harder for teachers because we don't have, 'here's the body of knowledge, here's the assessment, go to it.' "We've had a lot more background work for educators to work out what the pathway actually is for each student, and I hope that this approach will be welcomed." Macleans College principal and ministerial advisory panellist Steve Hargreaves said the changes provided more clarity and he expected it to be implemented correctly. "I think this is going to be phased really well, we do have a pretty long lead in," he told Morning Report. "We're going to get the curriculum first and that's how it should be, so we learn what to teach and how to teach it before we start designing the assessments. "There is a lot going on in primary school, but from what I can hear from my colleagues there, those changes to structured literacy and numeracy are landing really well." Hargreaves said students will join high school better prepared, and that teachers he had spoken to were really positive about the changes. He also believed it would encourage students to extend their stay at secondary school. "This is a bit of a guess, but I think it might lift the de facto leaving age," he said. "Now, if there's this indication that, well, you've got Level 1 and that's some kind of a leaving certificate, then students might head out the door. "But now with the sort of the base level achievement occurs at Year 12, then I think we will see more students staying on." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Spinoff
2 hours ago
- The Spinoff
NCEA out: Government plans biggest education shakeup in 20 years
A more structured set of qualifications is poised to replace NCEA entirely by 2030, pleasing the current system's copious haters, asks Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. Scrapping the system While an announcement on the future of NCEA was widely expected today, few predicted the government would propose abolishing the entire system. But that's exactly what education minister Erica Stanford and prime minister Christopher Luxon announced yesterday morning: a phased plan to replace all three levels of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement with a new, more structured qualification framework. The proposed system will see Year 11 students working towards a new Foundational Skills Award from 2028, focused on literacy and numeracy. Year 12 and 13 students will then study for two new national qualifications: the New Zealand Certificate of Education and Advanced Certificate of Education, to be introduced in 2029 and 2030 respectively. Students will be assessed using a mark out of 100 alongside letter grades, with English and Maths compulsory in Year 11 and a minimum of five subjects required in Years 12 and 13. A broken model Critics of NCEA have long argued that the system's flexibility – once seen as a virtue – has instead led to confusion and declining standards. According to Auckland University's Claudia Rozas, NCEA 'created an illusion of educational equity' by offering choice without addressing deeper inequalities. While students in low-income schools are often given a narrower range of subjects and pushed towards internal assessment, 'it is simply not the case that all students in low socio-economic schools are going to struggle with external assessment', she said. Speaking to Q+A's Jack Tame on Sunday, Jamie Beaton, founder of tutoring business Crimson Education, said the current system was leaving students unprepared for the future, without the resilience necessary for higher education or professional success. 'If you have an education system that's super chill and relaxed, you create these adults that can't actually function in the workplace,' he said. For Stanford and her officials, the final straw was a recent ERO review that found the system failed to ensure coherent learning programmes, was 'difficult to understand', and was not preparing students for future achievement. 'That report was hugely influential and formed the basis for discussions about what to do not just with Level 1, but the entire qualification,' reports the Herald's Jamie Ensor (Premium paywalled). The politics of education reform Today's announcement represents the most ambitious and potentially contentious education reform since NCEA was first introduced in 2002. In The Post (paywalled), Luke Malpass called it 'a brave move' that could prove the 'crowning achievement' of Stanford's ministerial career. But the scale of the overhaul – and its long implementation timeline – means it's unlikely to deliver any political payoff before the next election. While education is a personal priority for Luxon, he may not be in office by the time the first cohort graduates under the new system. Meanwhile Labour has expressed openness to the changes, while questioning the speed and scope of the changes. Education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime warned that 'previous rushed overhauls have led to students being the guinea pigs for failed change – like national standards – so we must get this right'. The Greens are more adamantly opposed. Spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan said the party '[remains] entirely unconvinced this is what our school system needs. In fact, it risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.' Why schools are walking away For many elite and private schools, the government's announcement is validation of a move they've already made. In recent years, an increasing number have either ditched NCEA or introduced parallel pathways such as Cambridge International or the International Baccalaureate (IB). Cambridge, widely seen as a more traditional academic model, is heavily exam-based and taken over two years, while IB offers a broad spread of subjects and extracurricular components like sport and service. Educationalist Nina Hood told Chelsea Daniels, host of the Front Page podcast, that the rise of these alternatives stemmed partly from concerns about NCEA's lack of consistency: while some students are studying hard all year, others 'can just opt into what are perceived to be the 'easiest' standards' and end up with the same qualifications, sometimes without sitting a single external exam. While defenders of NCEA say it provides valuable flexibility, the reality is that trust in the system has eroded. As Malpass noted, even if it did produce world-class outcomes, a qualification that isn't seen as credible is no better than a currency no one accepts. The next five years will reveal whether its replacement fares any better.
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Sports News for 5 August 2025
India took the last four wickets in under an hour to bowl England out for 367 and win an astonishing fifth test by six runs to draw the series 2-all. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
