Heather du Plessis Allan: Lowering the UE threshold was the right thing to do

 

So you’ll have caught up on the news now that the government is making it easier for teenagers to get NCEA qualifications this year, for the third year in a row.

They’ve lowered the standards, schools are again allowed to award extra credits called learning recognition credits and they get one for every 5 credits that the students achieves. The threshold for University Entrance has been lowered as well. So, instead of needing 14 credits in 3 different approved subjects, the kids can get by with 14 credits in 2 subjects, and then 12 credits in a third.

Now I’m prepared to be argued against on this but I reckon this is the right thing to do and I shock myself even saying that. The COVID disruption to kids this year, and not just COVID but really just general disruption across the board to kids this year has been out of this world.

I was talking to a principal today who told me that some schools have seen attendance as low as 30 percent. The kids are sick, the family members are sick, they are household contacts, whatever, and the whole thing is going on all the time. In some cases those kids are not allowed to attend school due to government rules that stop them from doing it.

And then you’ve got the teacher disruption as well. We've had so many teachers down, you might remember, a couple months back schools were closing down early. At one point one school Lynfield College was calling on 23 different teachers to cover extra classes on top of their own. I mean this is so far from a normal year, it’s ridiculous.

If you’ve lowered the bar for the last two years then surely this year qualifies for it as well. The question of course is, is the Government dumbing things down this year? Yeah they are, they are dumbing things down but on balance it’s for the better because let’s put some perspective, this is not for the smart kids, not for the middling kids even.

They’re not going to be affected by it if they want to be teachers and doctors and engineers, those kids don’t need the bar lowered, they’ll be fine.

It’s for the kids who are struggling to make the grade, the kids who aren’t going to end up with fantastic qualifications by the end of their lives. If they don’t make it, that’s probably the end of their schooling, they’ll be leaving without any qualifications whatsoever and they’ll be downgrading their job opportunities. But if you drop the level a bit for them they can still walk away with a qualification.

Which we all know is a little bit rubbish this year like it has been for the last two years, we know that, but at least they’ve got the thing to their name right? They can still get entry into their polytechnic courses they can still get into their jobs that they might need a qualification for. That’s surely better than them loosing future opportunities and future possibilities because of one terrible year plagued by bad COVID rules.

Ultimately it was a question of maintaining the usual standards in an unusual year and losing a whole bunch of kids from the system or going a bit soft and keeping their chances alive. I think the latter option was the better one, don’t you?

Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show.