Erica Stanford, who’s been tasked with dragging our education system out of the mire, announced a radical shake-up of NCEA, a qualification that’s been creaking under the weight of its own flaws for years. The plan? Ditch NCEA entirely, replace it with two new qualifications for years 12 and 13, and introduce a Foundational Skills Award for year 11 focused on literacy and numeracy. It’s a bold move, prompted by damning reports from the Education Review Office and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) that exposed NCEA’s “overused flexibility”, lack of coherent vocational pathways and a structure that lets students game the system to scrape by with credits rather than doing actual learning. The result? A qualification that’s lost credibility and leaves kids unprepared for the real world.
Stanford, to her credit, tried to play nice. As soon as Prime took over Labour’s education portfolio in March, Stanford offered to brief her on the NCEA changes, even dangling access to officials and the Professional Advisory Group. Crickets. Two months later, in May, Stanford’s office followed up. Still nothing. By July, with no response, Stanford went over Prime’s head to Labour leader Chris Hipkins, practically begging for some cross-party input on a national qualification that affects every Kiwi kid. The response? Prime’s adviser sent an email the next day, snootily declining the invite. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Then, in a plot twist that reeks of political gamesmanship, Prime suddenly had a change of heart in late July, right as the Herald reported that NCEA was facing a “credibility crisis”. She fired off a letter to Stanford with seven questions about the reforms, but, by then, key decisions were already made. Stanford, ever the diplomat, still offered a briefing, but the window to influence the direction had closed. Labour’s response? Whinge to the media that they weren’t consulted properly, with Prime bleating about the “hasty” six-week consultation period and Hipkins tut-tutting about the need for bipartisanship. David Farrar, over at Kiwiblog, nailed it: Labour’s either playing the “not consulted” card for cheap political points or they’re so incompetent they deserve nothing but derisive laughter.
So, what’s Labour’s real beef? It’s not just about being caught with their pants down. NCEA was their baby, birthed under Helen Clark’s Government in the early 2000s. Admitting it’s a broken system would be like confessing their flagship education policy has been a multi-decade disaster. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of kids have been let down by a qualification that prioritises accumulating credits over genuine learning. The NZQA warned that students are simply cherry-picking “easier” assessments and cobbling together incoherent courses that don’t prepare them for careers or tertiary study. Vocational pathways, like trades or hospitality, are a mess, with standards like ‘knowledge of a commercial espresso machine’ counting toward a qualification. Seriously? We’re churning out baristas instead of builders.
Yet, Labour and their mates in the teachers’ unions keep banging on about our ‘world-leading’ education system. World leading at what? Failure? International indices like PISA show New Zealand’s academic performance sliding faster than a bobsled on ice. Literacy and numeracy rates are in the gutter, and 16 per cent of students failed to achieve NCEA Level 1 in 2024. If that’s success, I’d hate to see what losing looks like. The unions, predictably, are clutching their pearls, with PPTA President Chris Abercrombie cautiously supporting the changes but fretting about losing NCEA’s “flexibility”. Flexibility to let kids scrape by with a CV-writing credit? Spare me.
Prime’s excuse for dodging Stanford’s invites is almost comical. She told RNZ she was too busy “engaging with the sector” to bother with the minister’s briefings. So, let me get this straight: Labour’s education spokesperson thought it was more important to chat with teachers and parents than to sit down with the government officials and experts actually designing the reforms? That’s not prioritising stakeholders: that’s prioritising your own narrative. Even Hipkins admitted Prime should have at least replied to Stanford, but he still defended her dawdling, saying it wasn’t “unreasonable” to talk to the sector first. Sorry, Chris, but when you’re offered a seat at the table and you choose to sulk in the corner, you don’t get to complain about the menu.
The kicker? Labour is now stuck in a bind. They can’t fully oppose the reforms because, as Hipkins admitted, they’re “broadly in the right direction.” But they can’t fully support them either, because that would mean admitting NCEA’s been a flop on their watch. So, they’re left carping about the consultation period and playing the victim. Meanwhile, Stanford’s out there doing the hard yards, consulting with the sector over six weeks and planning a three-year rollout to ensure the transition doesn’t leave students in the lurch. Kids in year nine now will be the last to sit NCEA and Stanford’s adamant they won’t be disadvantaged. Compare that to Labour’s track record of pushing through half-baked changes like national standards, leaving students as guinea pigs for their experiments.
This saga exposes Labour for what they are: a party more interested in protecting their legacy than fixing a broken system. Willow-Jean Prime’s inaction isn’t just a personal failing: it’s a symptom of a party that’s lost its way. As Farrar pointed out: if they’re not deliberately dodging to score points, then they’re just plain incompetent. Either way, it’s the kids who suffer. Stanford’s reforms might not be perfect but at least she’s tackling the problem head-on. Labour? They’re too busy dodging invites and crying foul to notice the education system crumbling around them.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.
Stanford, to her credit, tried to play nice. As soon as Prime took over Labour’s education portfolio in March, Stanford offered to brief her on the NCEA changes, even dangling access to officials and the Professional Advisory Group. Crickets. Two months later, in May, Stanford’s office followed up. Still nothing. By July, with no response, Stanford went over Prime’s head to Labour leader Chris Hipkins, practically begging for some cross-party input on a national qualification that affects every Kiwi kid. The response? Prime’s adviser sent an email the next day, snootily declining the invite. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Then, in a plot twist that reeks of political gamesmanship, Prime suddenly had a change of heart in late July, right as the Herald reported that NCEA was facing a “credibility crisis”. She fired off a letter to Stanford with seven questions about the reforms, but, by then, key decisions were already made. Stanford, ever the diplomat, still offered a briefing, but the window to influence the direction had closed. Labour’s response? Whinge to the media that they weren’t consulted properly, with Prime bleating about the “hasty” six-week consultation period and Hipkins tut-tutting about the need for bipartisanship. David Farrar, over at Kiwiblog, nailed it: Labour’s either playing the “not consulted” card for cheap political points or they’re so incompetent they deserve nothing but derisive laughter.
So, what’s Labour’s real beef? It’s not just about being caught with their pants down. NCEA was their baby, birthed under Helen Clark’s Government in the early 2000s. Admitting it’s a broken system would be like confessing their flagship education policy has been a multi-decade disaster. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of kids have been let down by a qualification that prioritises accumulating credits over genuine learning. The NZQA warned that students are simply cherry-picking “easier” assessments and cobbling together incoherent courses that don’t prepare them for careers or tertiary study. Vocational pathways, like trades or hospitality, are a mess, with standards like ‘knowledge of a commercial espresso machine’ counting toward a qualification. Seriously? We’re churning out baristas instead of builders.
Yet, Labour and their mates in the teachers’ unions keep banging on about our ‘world-leading’ education system. World leading at what? Failure? International indices like PISA show New Zealand’s academic performance sliding faster than a bobsled on ice. Literacy and numeracy rates are in the gutter, and 16 per cent of students failed to achieve NCEA Level 1 in 2024. If that’s success, I’d hate to see what losing looks like. The unions, predictably, are clutching their pearls, with PPTA President Chris Abercrombie cautiously supporting the changes but fretting about losing NCEA’s “flexibility”. Flexibility to let kids scrape by with a CV-writing credit? Spare me.
Prime’s excuse for dodging Stanford’s invites is almost comical. She told RNZ she was too busy “engaging with the sector” to bother with the minister’s briefings. So, let me get this straight: Labour’s education spokesperson thought it was more important to chat with teachers and parents than to sit down with the government officials and experts actually designing the reforms? That’s not prioritising stakeholders: that’s prioritising your own narrative. Even Hipkins admitted Prime should have at least replied to Stanford, but he still defended her dawdling, saying it wasn’t “unreasonable” to talk to the sector first. Sorry, Chris, but when you’re offered a seat at the table and you choose to sulk in the corner, you don’t get to complain about the menu.
The kicker? Labour is now stuck in a bind. They can’t fully oppose the reforms because, as Hipkins admitted, they’re “broadly in the right direction.” But they can’t fully support them either, because that would mean admitting NCEA’s been a flop on their watch. So, they’re left carping about the consultation period and playing the victim. Meanwhile, Stanford’s out there doing the hard yards, consulting with the sector over six weeks and planning a three-year rollout to ensure the transition doesn’t leave students in the lurch. Kids in year nine now will be the last to sit NCEA and Stanford’s adamant they won’t be disadvantaged. Compare that to Labour’s track record of pushing through half-baked changes like national standards, leaving students as guinea pigs for their experiments.
This saga exposes Labour for what they are: a party more interested in protecting their legacy than fixing a broken system. Willow-Jean Prime’s inaction isn’t just a personal failing: it’s a symptom of a party that’s lost its way. As Farrar pointed out: if they’re not deliberately dodging to score points, then they’re just plain incompetent. Either way, it’s the kids who suffer. Stanford’s reforms might not be perfect but at least she’s tackling the problem head-on. Labour? They’re too busy dodging invites and crying foul to notice the education system crumbling around them.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
Why doesn’t Stanford save a lot of time and money by just using a successful education model from Singapore or Finland. Why do people have to re-create the wheel?
My concern is where was Hipkins in all this? Clearly he didn’t know about the intended review. As the Leader my perception is he’d be meeting regularly with his shadow ministers?
National aren’t any better. Very recently it was announced a Ute tax was about to be introduced. Luxon quickly squashed it however, like Hipkins, he had no knowledge of what his minister was up to.
Is the direction of our country being chartered by incompetent over paid woke public servants?
Slightly off the subject but go one step backwards and ask how competent are the people selecting the electorate candidate. Is the profile being updated regularly? Once farmers were prevalent. Then along came school teachers. (The Greens and Te Pati Māori have goodness knows what as a criteria.)
In today’s every changing world one would think the candidate must have some business experience!
Good article and totally correct.
I do wonder though why we have spent billions of dollars and twenty odd years to make the country illiterate.
Labour have failed generations of kids and it’s being defended by the unions. Those same union members have kids who are being failed by NCEA, why defend it?
My fear is the “world leading” nonsense. What is it about the NZ government wanting to be world leading, tenth would do, then seventh, then fifth.
It’s like asking Auckland FC to win the World Cup in the first year of trying, not possible, forget it.
Implement Cambridge first and then once everyone understands what the issues are you can tweak the Cambridge system. Billions of kids are educated using Cambridge, what’s wrong with educating our kids to that standard?
The left teach failure. Full stop.
The obvious question for Prime is - what was she engaging with the sector about. Can't have been about the reforms can it?
The Left teaches failure in order to claim equity for Maori children. Education is dumbed down to engineer this outcome. The tribal rule system does not aim for high achieving citizens with aspirations - this is for the ruling Iwi elite only.
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