David Farrar: NCEA goneburger

Erica Stanford and the PM have announced incredibly significant changes to New Zealand’s secondary and vocational education system. I’ll explain what they are shortly, but first everyone needs to understand that the status quo is not working. That’s not an opinion, but backed by hard global data.

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Since 2000 our scores on the global PISA test has dropped 28 points for reading, 44 points for maths and 26 points for science. If you defend the status quo, you are saying we should settle for more decline. Ironically over the same time period NCEA achievement rates have risen.

It doesn’t have to be like this. In Ireland the changes since 2000 have been just -11, -11 and -4 compared to -28, -44 and -26 for NZ. The UK is -1, -6 and -15. The US +0, -18 and +10.

The decline is not due to our top students performing less well. It is because of the tail end of students having a greater and greater gap. So if you care about equity in education and closing the gap between the top and bottom performing students, you should be not be supporting the status quo.

The changes announced today are huge. This is no tinker. They were designed by an advisory group of principals who are at the coalface and know what does and doesn’t work. The key changes are:

• NCEA Levels 1, 2 and 3 are gone.

• Year 11 will do a Foundational Skills Award in literacy and numeracy. Year 12 the New Zealand Certificate of Education and Year 13 the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education.

• The standards-based assessment system where you can do a collection of individual standards such as coffee making is replaced with a subject-based approach that requires coherent programmes of learning.

• English and Maths will become compulsory for Year 11

• The two certificates will require you to pass at least four out of five subjects

• Assessment in each subject will get students a grade out of 100, with the traditional grade ranges of A to E. Parents, students and employers will once again be able to understand how a student is doing.

• There will be a focus on stronger vocational pathways with new subjects and standards co-designed with industry experts in areas like construction, automotive and hospitality.

The case for change is overwhelming. Apart from the massive decline PISA scores (despite an increase in NCEA achievement rates, which shows the two were not aligned), research has found the following:

• 60% of teachers don’t believe NCEA Level 1 is reliable

• 71% of employers don’t see NCEA Level 1 as a reliable measure of knowledge

• Only 54% of Year 12 and 65% of Year 13 students achieved NCEA with three or more full subjects

• The focus on accumulating credits gets in the way of learning

• Often students stop studying as soon as they achieve the minimum number of credits, students tell teachers they are only interested in learning if it’s worth credits

• Lack of deep learning and does not encourage students to learn independently- tertiary providers report having to teach students how to learn

The proposed overhaul is open for consultation until 15 September. I would urge parents especially to submit on it. This is arguably the most important reform the Government will undertake, in terms of New Zealand’s future.

The consultation document > https://www.scribd.com/document/896834570/NCEA-Discussion-Document#from_embed

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders