Mixed reaction to NCEA replacement plan
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the Minister for Education Erica Stanford have announced a proposal to replace the entire NCEA programme with new national qualifications.
Year 11 students would be required to sit a foundation test in numeracy and literacy and year 12 and 13 students would receive two new qualifications — the New Zealand Certificate of Education and Advanced Certificate of Education.
Students would be required to take five subjects and pass at least four of them to receive a certificate being awarded a mark out of 100 and grades "that make sense to parents like A, B, C, D, E".
Otago Secondary Principals' Association chairwoman Jackie Barron, who is a principal at St Hilda's Collegiate School, said her initial thoughts were the curriculum change would give teachers some certainty and schools some clarity around what was expected of them.
Despite being positive about the changes, she said the information was new and would take time to process.
There was previously some anxiety around what the NCEA was going to look like with recent changes to the qualification made in an attempt to put a stronger focus on literacy and numeracy.
"This gives us a really clear timeline," Ms Barron said.
There was enough time for teachers to adjust to the new curriculum as major changes to year 12 and 13 courses were not expected until 2028.
Ms Barron thought it was the right call to replace NCEA if the new curriculum was inclusive and engaged all students.
She said one of NCEA's strengths was its flexibility and it was important not to go back to a narrow form of assessment that only tested certain types of learning.
"We need to maintain the openness to valuing all different types of learning."
Otago Boys' High School rector Richard Hall said the proposed new curriculum appeared to be an improvement on NCEA.
He said the existing NCEA framework faced challenges posed by an "attitude that can favour mediocrity".
There were issues with it including excessive credit counting and an over-reliance on internal assessment at the expense of robust external examination opportunities.
Otago Boys' had maintained a strong expectation for its students to sit exams even if they had already received all the credits they needed to pass.
"We believe that a shift towards a potentially 50/50 model of internal and external assessment [exams] would represent a beneficial step forward," Mr Hall said.
PPTA Otago regional chairman Kussi Hurtado-Stuart was concerned the new qualification would lose some of the flexibility NCEA had.
He said the loss of flexibility would affect neurodiverse learners the most, especially if exams were heavily weighted.
He was worried teachers would not be given enough resource support to transition into the new curriculum.
"I think that there was a moment of solidarity and eye rolls this morning across the country both at the change that was proposed and the support they said we were going to get."
Teachers' expectations were reasonably low there would be any support.
Ms Stanford said the NCEA change programme was already funded and some proposals like the expansion of Vocational Education and Training pathways would require additional funding that would be considered in future budgets.
The flexibility NCEA offered in externals and internals would be maintained with the new qualification and special assessment conditions would be, too.
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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.
NZ Herald
3 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Aaron Smale: Why politicians don't take the Māori vote seriously
Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech. Christopher Luxon's indifference reflects the larger issue of the major parties ignoring Māori as a voting bloc. Photo / Getty Images Whoever the press secretary is for Christopher Luxon these days, they might want to have a weekend bootcamp teaching him how to keep his foot out of his mouth. Apart from when he uses corporate gibberish to masquarade as an answer, on the rare occasion Luxon says something pithy, it often turns out to be an absolute clanger. Luxon tossed off one such clanger when he questioned whether the September 6 by-election for the Māori electorate seat of Tāmaki Makaurau would be a real fight or 'a pillow fight'. (Kind of ironic given the real pillow fight is in the Epsom seat, which National hands to Act every three years.) A by-election will be held in Tāmaki Makaurau because the person who held the seat, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, recently died. And she held the seat because the voters of that electorate put her there, unlike some party list mediocrity like, well, take your pick. Luxon's comment was flippant at best and disrespectful to both the late MP and her constituents. So, no, it's not a pillow fight, it's a vote in the largest Polynesian city in the world. But Luxon's indifference to Māori voters in the coming by-election reflects the larger issue of the major parties mostly ignoring Māori as a voting bloc. One of the underlying reasons for this was first pointed out to me by my sixth form history teacher at Edgecumbe College, Gerry Rowlands, an American originally from Florida, a southern state with all the history that entails. Mr Rowlands posed a hypothetical idea that Māori would be better off all going on the general roll and getting rid of the Māori seats altogether. His rationale was that the electorate we were in was often held by National because of the high number of Pākehā farmers. But if Māori all went on the general roll, then National – and Labour, for that matter – would actually have to compete for the Māori vote to win. The then-named Eastern Māori seat went from the Bay of Plenty all the way around the East Coast and down to Wairarapa and Wellington. This area has one of the highest Māori populations in the country and the election campaigns in the general electorate seats would look completely different if all Māori went on the general roll. Mr Rowlands didn't say this but I don't think he'd disagree – the Māori seats are acting as a passive version of what Americans call gerrymandering. That is, Māori are being electorally contained – or at least split – and thereby robbed of their actual voting power by the Māori seats. The Māori vote has been ghettoised; every Māori who goes on the Māori roll is a Māori the candidates and the elected MPs in the general seats can ignore. And they do. Back to Auckland and the present day. One of Luxon's long catalogue of gaffes since taking up National's leadership was encouraging women to have babies to boost the flagging population. He quickly backtracked. Women have fought long and hard to have control over their fertility and some male politician telling them to start banging out babies for the national cause wasn't landing well. But what Luxon dimly recognised was that Pākehā numbers are in the early stages of decline, and this decline will only accelerate as the 34% of the Pākehā population that is over the age of 55 falls off the perch at an increasing rate. Luxon doesn't seem to recognise, even dimly, that Māori and Polynesian populations are rising steadily. Listen to Luxon's political messaging and it's as if Māori don't exist in his calculations. Labour's Chris Hipkins isn't any better, and in some respects he's worse. When Māori became a political target, he, like Helen Clark before him, dropped them like a hot hāngī rock so he could appear non-threatening to old, white people. The coalition government has had a free run in its attack on Māori because Hipkins does little to stand up for them, or articulate in any coherent way why what's good for Māori is good for everyone. He'd rather let Te Pāti Māori take the flak. Te Pāti Māori has become a convenient – and, it must be said, easy – political target. But those who bear the brunt of the political attack are actually their voters. Their interests get drowned out in all the posturing from across the political spectrum. The merits of the Tāmaki Makaurau candidates – Peeni Henare for Labour, Oriini Kaipara for Te Pāti Māori and Hannah Tamaki for Vision New Zealand – are open to serious question. But National, NZ First, Act, and even the Greens, have disqualified themselves from any part in the conversation, because they haven't bothered to put up candidates. Māori are at the pointy end of issues that concern everyone, particularly those of a younger generation: the cost of housing, the cost of living, the environment and the future of employment. The economic and social direction of South Auckland and other regions of the country with high Māori populations is the direction of the country as a whole. It's a bare-knuckle fight for the future of the nation. Mr Luxon is just too scared to even get in the ring.
