Firstly, the "New Zealand Certificate of Education” actually sounds like something, doesn’t it? The same way an “A” tells you something.
The New Zealand Certificate or Advanced Certificate of Education is a “thing” you can get your head around, as in do you have one, or do you not?
NCEA is an acronym.
Under the changes you need to pass things. How wonderfully old-fashioned.
If you don’t pass you don’t advance, therefore when you do pass it actually counts. It means something and you have achieved something.
Having watched NCEA in action with five kids, it has been shocking. Virtually anyone could get it and that was, and is, never a good thing.
Under the new regime you take five subjects, and you need to pass four. There's nothing too complicated about that.
The compulsion around maths and language I am, in a way, sad about.
Choice is good and freedom is good, if you know what you are doing. If you're aiming somewhere specific a tailored approach is vastly more appealing.
But in a mass system you are vulnerable to chancers and the weakest links, and they were always going to take the joke subjects, the easy gets. And as such, wreck any reputation you might have hoped for around your qualification.
The vocational aspect is years overdue. Gateway and versions like it sort of touched on the trades and specific careers or jobs. But this fascination, if not obsession, we seemed to have had with university has been ruinous for too many.
Being a tradie is actually to be admired. It is not second place. The snobbishness around a university degree has got so absurd, you’ve ended up with any number of bewildered teenagers chasing arts degrees and Bachelors of Communication for no discernible reason other than that’s what they thought they should do.
I'm dreadfully sad though for the thousands of kids who have been messed around with NCEA. What's its value? What weight does a generation of kids place on a thing that’s been binned?
For some they got locked down in Covid and given a crap qualification, thanks for coming.
But onwards and upwards. It's a little bit back to the future.
But along with the mad open classrooms, isn't it fascinating how forward the old days appear now to be?
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Under the changes you need to pass things. How wonderfully old-fashioned.
If you don’t pass you don’t advance, therefore when you do pass it actually counts. It means something and you have achieved something.
Having watched NCEA in action with five kids, it has been shocking. Virtually anyone could get it and that was, and is, never a good thing.
Under the new regime you take five subjects, and you need to pass four. There's nothing too complicated about that.
The compulsion around maths and language I am, in a way, sad about.
Choice is good and freedom is good, if you know what you are doing. If you're aiming somewhere specific a tailored approach is vastly more appealing.
But in a mass system you are vulnerable to chancers and the weakest links, and they were always going to take the joke subjects, the easy gets. And as such, wreck any reputation you might have hoped for around your qualification.
The vocational aspect is years overdue. Gateway and versions like it sort of touched on the trades and specific careers or jobs. But this fascination, if not obsession, we seemed to have had with university has been ruinous for too many.
Being a tradie is actually to be admired. It is not second place. The snobbishness around a university degree has got so absurd, you’ve ended up with any number of bewildered teenagers chasing arts degrees and Bachelors of Communication for no discernible reason other than that’s what they thought they should do.
I'm dreadfully sad though for the thousands of kids who have been messed around with NCEA. What's its value? What weight does a generation of kids place on a thing that’s been binned?
For some they got locked down in Covid and given a crap qualification, thanks for coming.
But onwards and upwards. It's a little bit back to the future.
But along with the mad open classrooms, isn't it fascinating how forward the old days appear now to be?
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
Not surprising the woke "education experts" at AUT, the Greens and teachers unions and mist of the msm are against the changes. RNZ quotes unnamed teachers who are also against it. Education should not be about "equiping kids for employment" they say. It should be about "helping them to be valued members of a multicultural society". They say all the changes are too stressful. The changes are apparently "turning the clock back" away from "a student centered approach". Unfortunately the problem with education is not only the NCEA but also the people running it.
I think the boomers and Gen X were the last of the mohicans, in that we were all taught HOW to think and not WHAT to think. And history was not changed to suit the politics of the day. It doesn't matter what system they have if all the wokeness and decolonisation bs continues.
No, 'NCEA' is not an acronym. An acronym is voiced like a word, e.g. 'UNESCO' is pronounced 'you-ness-co'. 'NCEA' is spelt out letter by letter.
>"Virtually anyone could get it and that was, and is, never a good thing."
Wrong. The whole idea behind the NCEA is that every school leaver should be able to present a record of satisfactory performance in some fields. A youngster headed for an apprenticeship and one heading for engineering at varsity both have the NCEA at the required level for their destinations but there is no similarity between them. And there is no reason why there should be. These two youngsters are not competing for a common resource.
I agree with the positive comments about the vocational track but would encourage readers to have a look at the very strong European systems where they will find a technical track at upper secondary school that is distinct from the vocational one. There is a huge gap between a tradie and a higher professional that needs plugging here.
I recall classes, with pupils sitting in desks, listening to the teacher. and studying the subject. Then sitting a test or exam and knowing how well I was doing by my test/exam mark. And also seeing where I needed to put more study in.
Then I sat School Certificate and got U.E. accredited, and went on to Pharmacy School.
The point here is that this system actually WORKED.
When NCEA was introduced I attended an explanation meeting for parents. The headmaster, as all in senior education positions, was a wildly enthusiastic advocate for the latest fad (although his school promptly offered Cambridge!). An extended tertiary education notwithstanding I came away totally confused. I do not know what other parents made of it all. Especially as the eclectic school had a large low decile component. My son chose his course without contribution from me as I felt unable to intelligently contribute. At the time I maintained that the same enormous effort refining School Cert would have been time better spent. We seem now to be returning to something like School Cert. Incidentally SC was also accused of downward standard drift; a fact clearly evident from old papers when I sat it eons ago. Scaling was a huge criticism, but later proved impractical to avoid. Speeded the drift.
The greatest virtue of the new qualification is that it will occupy a myriad Education, Teaching Council, and union staff who would otherwise be devoting their time to extended maorification and gender issues etc
I was very pleased . Mike , that you believe like me the past is looking more and more like our best future wrst education.
Mid last century were NZ 's days of being godszone described as such largely because we had a great education system. A major factor in this was that schools were then , not captured as much by destructive ideologies such as we have now .
This for me is the elephant in the classroom -nefarious theories dictating what, how and when is to be taught or not taught in the classroom.
The dominant ideology now is destructive ' constructivism ' , Briefly this is an idea not grounded in empirical research . It downplays the importance of methods and content that actually make learning effective. This includes cancelling out rote learning, spelling , tables, phonics , explicit instruction , handwriting, some grammar . repetition , revision and many aspects considered 'old school'. Instead the constructivist approach places most importance on meaning. Constructivist approaches also downplay the importance of holding high standards in completion , accuracy and correction of school work.. Enjoyment is also emphasized over hard work . Free choice over discipline.
Recent neuro and cognitive science , however is debunking all this through research on working and and long term memory .
NCEA may have been more successful if students had also been taught traditionally not in a constructivist way which discourages them making good choices of subjects and teachers not handicapped in having ineffective constructivist teaching methods forced on them particularly at primary school.
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