NCEA Overhaul, About Time!
'There's no better indicator of a society's future success than the amount of knowledge passed from one generation to the next. That requires a robust curriculum and a way of assessing it that holds everyone accountable.
'The debate over NCEA was the first time I paid any attention to politics. I watched the Principal of my high school, John Morris, fighting the Minister of Education, Trevor Mallard. Everything John predicted has turned out to be right.
'NCEA was driven by an ideology that competition and excellence are bad, and every student should create their own academic adventure. It has meant diligent students who choose robust Standards and apply themselves still do well, but there are also other, easier options.
'Over the time that the NCEA has been in place, New Zealand high school students have fallen badly in the OECD's PISA study. The study of 15-year-olds in reading, maths, and science is done once every three years.
'In the early 2000s when NCEA was introduced, New Zealand was often in the top five. Today we are 23rd for Maths, and in each subject today's students are about a year behind where the same aged students were at the start of the century.
'There has also been a worrying drift towards anxiety, away from resilience among students. Sitting exams and getting graded is tough, we all know that, but it serves as a useful preparation for life, taking on challenges and building resilience. By moving away from high stakes exams, we may have unintentionally worn down New Zealand's character.
'Replacing the NCEA with a rich body of real knowledge being richly assessed is the right direction. If New Zealand is going to be a high income country through the twenty-first century, it must have the policies in place to pass useful knowledge from one generation to the next.
'ACT wholeheartedly supports this move and urges the Government not to back down."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scoop
9 hours ago
- Scoop
Government's NCEA Reforms Vindicate Decade Of Education Research
Wellington (Monday, 4 August 2025) – The New Zealand Initiative welcomes the Government's announcement to replace NCEA with a more rigorous qualification system, marking a crucial turning point for New Zealand education. The proposed reforms – including compulsory English and Mathematics at Year 11, structured subject requirements and clearer A-E grading – directly address the fundamental flaws The New Zealand Initiative has identified through years of research. 'This is precisely the overhaul we've been calling for,' said Dr Michael Johnston, Senior Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative. 'NCEA's excessive flexibility has become its fatal weakness, allowing students to game the system rather than master essential knowledge.' The Government's move to introduce a knowledge-rich national curriculum aligns perfectly with the Initiative's longstanding advocacy for education. Since 2018, the Initiative has documented how NCEA's credit accumulation model encourages superficial learning at the expense of deep subject mastery. 'When students can cherry-pick easy standards to accumulate credits, we shouldn't be surprised that employers find school leavers lack basic skills,' Dr Johnston said. 'The new five-subject structure will ensure students develop coherent knowledge rather than collecting disconnected fragments.' The Initiative particularly applauds the commitment to develop better vocational pathways in partnership with industry. This directly implements recommendations from the Initiative's recent research showing that fragmented vocational programmes have failed to provide clear alternatives to university. 'Schools have been overwhelmingly biased towards academic pathways, even though only a third of students pursue degrees,' Dr Johnston said. 'Creating industry-designed vocational pathways with equal status to academic routes is essential for serving all students, not just the university-bound.' The proposed A-E grading system will provide the transparency parents and employers have long sought, replacing NCEA's opaque achievement levels with internationally understood standards. 'These reforms represent a victory for quality over mediocrity,' Dr Johnston said. 'Now the hard work begins – implementing these changes effectively will determine whether New Zealand can finally reverse two decades of educational decline.' About The New Zealand Initiative The New Zealand Initiative is an evidence-based think tank and research institute contributing to public policy discussion. Supported by the nation's leading visionaries, business leaders and political thinkers, we are committed to making New Zealand a better country for all its citizens with a world-class education system, affordable housing, a healthy environment, sound public finances and a stable currency.
RNZ News
9 hours ago
- RNZ News
The Panel with Sarah Perriam-Lampp and Peter Dunne Part 1
Tonight, on The Panel, Wallace Chapman is joined by panellists Sarah Perriam-Lampp and Peter Dunne . To begin: the NCEA annoucnment from the government sees Erica Stanford and Christopher Luxon proposing to abolish and replace NCEA. They also discuss the government's plans to revise the Conservation Act which includes charging international visitors $20-40 dollars to access four popular sites - Cathedral Cove, the Tongariro Crossing, Milford Sound and Aoraki Mount Cook. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
NZ Herald
11 hours ago
- NZ Herald
NCEA changes: What led to Government's radical overhaul, why we shouldn't be shocked
The proposal does, however, represent massive upheaval for a sector that has faced its fair share of stop-and-start in the past few years and is a step away from the flexibility beloved by some in the education community. Education Minister Erica Stanford revealed the proposal on Monday morning. Photo / Alyse Wright The Government's proposal would lead to two new certificates being established for Years 12 and 13 that are more structured and subject-driven than the current standards-based model. Instead of students trying to grab every credit they can across disparate standards like kids in a money booth with paper notes blowing around in the air, they will be tested and marked on their knowledge of an entire subject. The return of an 'out of 100' and A to E letter grade is intended by the Government to be a clearer indication to parents, employers and tertiary education providers of a student's knowledge. The package is one of the most consequential steps the coalition has taken this term and will likely be remembered as a landmark moment in this Government's approach to education. Pending any last-minute adjustments during consultation, these changes will have a direct impact on the readiness of future generations entering the workforce and tertiary education. When the Government talks about tackling the infrastructure deficit, improving productivity and ultimately achieving its prized economic growth, there are, of course, short-term initiatives to get the ball rolling. But long-term, it's students in class right now who will have a lot to contribute. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who has spent considerable time working overseas and is known to be personally passionate about education, is clearly concerned NCEA isn't preparing Kiwi kids to be the top of class internationally. You only have to look at an OECD study released last year that found New Zealanders aged 16 to 24 had below-average literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills. The results have worsened compared to a similar study in 2014-15. Asked by the Herald last month about possible fixes, Luxon made it clear the Government was readying for a 'fundamental overhaul' of secondary school assessments. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has a passion for education. Photo / Michael Craig What led to change? This hasn't come out of nowhere. Stanford has been looking to make changes to NCEA for years, including when she was National's education spokesperson in Opposition. The then-Labour Government announced a programme of work to deal with various issues facing NCEA. It devised new literacy and numeracy co-requisites and fewer standards to refocus students, but there were delays as the sector asked for more implementation time. Stanford believed the change programme was 'fundamentally flawed' and thought simply making tweaks wasn't enough. After taking office in late 2023, she pushed out the introduction of some reforms. But the new minister didn't have enough time to halt the Level 1 amendments set to begin just a couple of months later. So she later commissioned a review by the Education Review Office (ERO), which found that despite the overhaul, Level 1 remained 'difficult to understand' and was not preparing students for future achievement. It said one option was to drop it entirely. That report was hugely influential and formed the basis for discussions about what to do not just with Level 1, but the entire qualification. Stanford told the Herald last month that ERO 'unearthed a lot of things that we weren't possibly expecting'. Over the following year, Stanford received more briefings, including papers from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) the Herald got hold of. They warned of a credibility crisis over 'overused' flexibility, a lack of coherent vocational education pathways and an over-reliance on internal assessments. They also showed nearly half of Year 12 students who achieved Level 2 last year did so 'without engaging in a full programme of coherent subject-based learning'. About a third of Year 12 and 13 students who achieved Level 2 or 3 relied on unit standards from 'disparate' subjects. Education Minister Erica Stanford has been thinking about reform since her time in Opposition. Photo / Mark Mitchell A more prescriptive approach While this was happening behind the scenes, Stanford was beginning to announce reforms focusing on primary and intermediate schools. This sequencing was important. Stanford believed to address issues with students at high school, you first had to start with the challenges facing them earlier in their school life. The Government instructed teachers to spend an hour a day teaching reading, writing and math. Structured literacy and numeracy was rolled out, while standardised testing was brought in much earlier in a child's school life. The actions showed the Government's prescriptive approach. Today's secondary school qualification proposal keeps to that pattern, rolling back some flexibility and replacing it with more direction. The Opposition sees this as the Beehive enforcing 'one-size-fits-all' and has argued the minister is moving too fast. But the Government thinks the 'back to basics' style is easier for students and parents to understand, and also simpler for teachers. Stanford wants an overall education package driven by consistency, with the hope children can move between schools and expect the same level of learning, driven by the same assessments and standards. Whether that works out will depend on how well the changes are implemented and if the minister is able to bring those in the sector along with her. Stanford is critical of how reforms were being rolled out under Labour, though Chris Hipkins – current Labour leader and former Education Minister – says they were disrupted by factors such as Covid-19. He believes Labour's work provided insights into NCEA's issues. Labour's main point of concern on Monday was not directed at the substance of the proposed changes, but instead around the uncertainty caused and ensuring teachers, parents and others had an appropriate period to share their views. The Post-Primary Teachers' Association responded to the proposal by saying while no system is perfect, the current one has 'clear advantages' over the previous qualification and no changes should be made 'for change's sake or political legacy'. 'The lack of adequate support for, and political flip-flopping on, NCEA means teachers are left trying to fill the gaps. We need stability and certainty.' Consultation will take place over the next six weeks, while any new qualification won't be introduced until the end of the decade. Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.
