In 2028, a foundational award in literacy and numeracy will replace NCEA Level 1. The New Zealand Certificate of Education and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education will replace NCEA Levels 2 and 3 in 2029 and 2030, respectively.
Under NCEA, each assessment contributes credits towards qualifications. Students can opt out of assessments they think will be difficult. Under the new qualification system, that strategy will no longer fly. Students will receive grades for whole subjects, based on percentage scales.
The change vindicates a decade of the Initiative’s work, especially Briar Lipson’s report, Spoiled by Choice. The report called for NCEA to be replaced with the kind of system Stanford announced.
Reaction to the announcement has been generally positive. Teachers and principals know the piecemeal approach to assessment under NCEA has often made learning piecemeal as well. When students skip assessments, they also forego important learning.
Chris Abercrombie, President of the secondary teachers' union, has said he likes the intention to improve vocational education pathways under the new system. He did raise a contentious point, however.
Credits from a wide range of assessments can contribute to NCEA. When students struggle to achieve qualifications, they often get over the line with assessments for things like making CVs or barista skills.
Abercrombie wants this kind of flexibility to continue under the new system. But there must be no place in the new system for that approach.
Whether a qualification certifies curriculum subjects like mathematics and history, or vocational pathways like automotive engineering and animal husbandry, they must reflect coherent programmes of learning and assessment.
Qualifications padded out with assessments of isolated skills are not worth much. They do not open doors to university, industry training, or employment. When students are awarded qualifications like this, they are frankly, being sold a lie.
The new system will not enable low roads to qualifications. It will require our education system to lift its game. There will be much more incentive to support students to succeed in difficult learning.
Not all students are interested in academic study, and the new system must deliver on Stanford’s promise to provide high-quality vocational pathways. But whether they study chemistry or carpentry, when students gain qualifications, it will mean they are ready for life and learning beyond school.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
The change vindicates a decade of the Initiative’s work, especially Briar Lipson’s report, Spoiled by Choice. The report called for NCEA to be replaced with the kind of system Stanford announced.
Reaction to the announcement has been generally positive. Teachers and principals know the piecemeal approach to assessment under NCEA has often made learning piecemeal as well. When students skip assessments, they also forego important learning.
Chris Abercrombie, President of the secondary teachers' union, has said he likes the intention to improve vocational education pathways under the new system. He did raise a contentious point, however.
Credits from a wide range of assessments can contribute to NCEA. When students struggle to achieve qualifications, they often get over the line with assessments for things like making CVs or barista skills.
Abercrombie wants this kind of flexibility to continue under the new system. But there must be no place in the new system for that approach.
Whether a qualification certifies curriculum subjects like mathematics and history, or vocational pathways like automotive engineering and animal husbandry, they must reflect coherent programmes of learning and assessment.
Qualifications padded out with assessments of isolated skills are not worth much. They do not open doors to university, industry training, or employment. When students are awarded qualifications like this, they are frankly, being sold a lie.
The new system will not enable low roads to qualifications. It will require our education system to lift its game. There will be much more incentive to support students to succeed in difficult learning.
Not all students are interested in academic study, and the new system must deliver on Stanford’s promise to provide high-quality vocational pathways. But whether they study chemistry or carpentry, when students gain qualifications, it will mean they are ready for life and learning beyond school.
Dr Michael Johnston is a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
Good point and very valid. What’s going to be at the end of the chain when we have all these bright young students leaving school?
Industry is closing down in NZ at a scary rate, deindustrialising the country for climate concerns is leaving a hollow shell of a country.
There needs to be real jobs and apprenticeships for the students to fill and the people running the apprenticeship schemes actually need to know stuff.
Having been a tutor in and reading and maths . to all school levels most of my life I was , of course , pleased to see the requirement for literacy and numeracy. About time ! Parents have been agitating for this for decades. It was academics like Prof. Stuart McNaughton, Marie Clay' s disciple, who prevented change occurring much earlier. r
However I am concerned about the seismic shift , required by especially primary teachers , who have been indoctrinated into all the theoretical educational nonsense, which has led to failure in the basics.
I mean, when I attended some tertiary educational studies in the 1970s ( 50 years ago !) the book lists included Piaget ,Illich, Dewey and other Progressives but the ideas of these guys still dominate.There has been so much research that refutes their theories but still they linger on.
A few weeks ago a teacher told me rote learning the times tables caused maths anxiety and it was through understanding learning happens- pure Piaget theory.
I have learned that an older current primary school infant teacher will not commit to structured literacy because that is not her way of doing reading instruction . Then there is the Aotearoa Teachers' Collective who also publisize they don't subscribe to Structured Literacy. Alwyn Poole is also not enthusiastic about this phonics method.
My conclusion is the necessity to give parents/ extended family as much information and guidance as possible on how to participate in their childs' primary education. Specifically pre -school and school phonic instruction , and basic arithmetic. I find the Ministry of Education , on line, phonic instruction moderately useful but move it into preschool advice as well. The maths / arithmetic advice is too time consuming and not on explicit instruction at all like advice on teaching tables - please not just playing games. Whose idea was it not to allow parents easy access to the maths workbooks? Why is the initial infant reading programme so expensive for parents to buy-hundreds of dollars apparently.
My mother set the example of teaching parents how to teach their own remedial children , with only one lesson per week . She was following the example of infant teaching early last century in NZ when parents owned all the texts .They were home based. Take note Briar Lipson . I have great respect for your work but you are omitting NZ educational traditions - freedom of information and teaching materials for parents. My mother taught hundreds of preschoolers , including handicapped ones, to read , as was frequently done in homes earlier last century in NZ. Just reading stories to preschoolers is no guarantee at all of competency in literacy developing.
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