Matua Kahurangi: Erica Stanford - Teachers will no longer mark student work

National’s Education Minister Erica Stanford has revealed a sweeping change that will see teachers relieved of one of their most time-consuming duties: marking student assessments. Speaking on The Duncan Garner Podcast, Stanford confirmed that by 2028, the responsibility for marking both internal and external NCEA assessments will shift entirely to NZQA, and much of it will be done using artificial intelligence.

Michael Johnston: Not too excellent please

NZQA would like help deciding what excellence means.

The trouble is, too many students have been achieving it.

So, NZQA has published a discussion document. Presumably, they want people to discuss what excellence means and let them know.

Ron Smith: Education and Propaganda

A functioning democracy requires institutions that provide for its citizens an unfettered opportunity to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.  It also requires a free and unbiased media, especially in regard to that part of it that is in public ownership and under official control.  I have commented on the manifest deficiencies of the New Zealand media in this respect on earlier occasions.  See, for example, my ‘Public Service and Public Propaganda’ of August 2011, which focussed on National Radio and the persistent radical bias of the bulk of its presenters and guests. 

But there is a third leg to the democratic ‘stool’ and that is an education system that seriously prepares its future voters to play a part in determining the sort of society in which they will live, rather than be merely election fodder.