Flogging a Dying Horse

Something Not Quite Right Down at the Ranch

When the National Certificate of Educational Achievement ("NCEA") was introduced in New Zealand with strong bi-partisan support it was designed to affirm the worth of all secondary school students by ensuring that they did not pass out without some qualification of some sort.  Consequently, the curriculum was broadened to include all manner of subjects, in which one could gain academic credits.  Failing a child was deemed to be psychologically damaging.

Eventually some of the worst excesses of the system were planed off as rules, regulations and governance improved.  But stubborn realities remain.  NCEA is an academic standard not used or recognised in any other country.  An increasing number of subjects are being assessed internally by the schools teaching the courses--setting up a conflict of interest where teaching staff are also the assessing staff in an environment where one's professional standing and assessment depends significantly on certain pass rates being achieved.  Moreover, NCEA implicitly makes all subjects equal.  So one can get "soft" qualifications that hardly represent academic achievement, though a student may have a piece of paper telling them they have "educational" achievement. Finally, students are not provided with marks, but with a bland assertion that they have "achieved" a respective standard. 

A number of secondary schools have decided to offer additional academic standards to compensate for the intrinsic, systemic inadequacies of NCEA.
  The most commonly used is the Cambridge system, which focuses upon a classic core curriculum, and offers externally marked examinations; students are able to measure their ability and achievement against global peers.  Ironically, they are awarded marks, instead certification that they have achieved (or not).  As one recent, highly successful New Zealand Cambridge student (enrolled at Avondale College) said, it is better to be awarded a percentage mark, which is far more helpful as a measure of achievement against an absolute benchmark as well as a measure against peers.

One place where the merits of NCEA are measured is when successful NCEA graduates want to go on to university.  New Zealand universities operate (and are measured) in a global educational market.  Their standards have to be high in that competitive market place to attract both funding and students.  The universities have established standards, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, for University Entrance--which effectively is a more exclusive sub-set of higher achieving NCEA graduates.

In order to go on from high school to study at New Zealand universities one needs to have the following NCEA qualifications:

University Entrance (UE) is the minimum requirement to go to a New Zealand university. To qualify you will need:

• NCEA Level 3
• Three subjects - at Level 3, made up of:
  • 14 credits each, in three approved subjects
• Literacy - 10 credits at Level 2 or above, made up of:
  • 5 credits in reading
  • 5 credits in writing
• Numeracy - 10 credits at Level 1 or above, made up of:
  • achievement standards – specified achievement standards available through a range of subjects, or
  • unit standards - package of three numeracy unit standards (26623, 26626, 26627- all three required).

Once you have met the requirements for University Entrance it will appear on your Record of Achievement.

One gets the picture.  In order to matriculate at a university in New Zealand, you now need a "Rolls Royce" NCEA qualification, having not just achieved at the highest level (Level 3), but also in three approved subjects, with additional minimum standards in numeracy and literacy.

These new standards have just come into play.  The results?  Fewer students are meeting the minimum University Entrance requirements.

A big drop in the number of students able to study at tertiary level has prompted calls for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to review whether new University Entrance (UE) requirements are having the desired effect.  More than 20,500 Year 13 students - 58 per cent - achieved NCEA Level 3 last year. That's the new entry level requirement for students wanting to go to university which is down from 71 per cent in 2013 and lower than 10 years ago when 64 per cent of students gained UE. [NZ Herald]

This is a very low percentage of students able to enter university.  Remember, these are students who have graduated with the highest level of secondary school qualifications and have been at secondary school for the longest number of years.  Despite completely exhausting all that secondary had to offer, and despite achieving the highest qualifications that NCEA provides, nearly half of such successful graduates were not qualified to go on to university study.

Mr Whelan said his organisation, which represents New Zealand's eight universities, had been pushing to raise the standards for UE, as it was not fair for young people to be given the wrong signals about whether they would succeed at that level. However, he was surprised by how many students failed to meet the new requirements and Universities NZ was working with government organisations to ensure students who could succeed hadn't been given bad advice and taken the wrong courses last year.

Here are two possible explanations:  grade inflation remains rife within the NCEA system and there are too many non-core, irrelevant courses being taught.

There must always be elite schools and elite academic institutions.  "Elite" in this context means offering and requiring high, world-class academic standards.  Egalitarians, of course, will bristle at the notion.  But they remain the enemies of a high-class, world leading education.  These are the folk who successfully peddled NCEA in New Zealand.  Not that they didn't want the New Zealand education system to be best in the world class.  Of course they did.  It's just that how they defined "best" differed from just about everyone else in the world.  They wanted an education system that was world-leading in egalitarian values and principles.  They have been remarkably successful.

Fast forward ten years, and we will likely find that New Zealand students are in the minority at our own world-class universities.  Maybe, just maybe, by that stage the government educational establishment will be ready to dump NCEA as an expensive, destructive failure.  But in the meantime, there's life yet in the dying beast.  Lets' flog it a bit harder.  In this regard, we will leave the last word to Angela Roberts, head of the secondary teachers' union:

Though she agreed that the changes made to lift the bar for UE was a good thing, she was concerned with a narrowing of what was acceptable for students to use towards gaining admission to the tertiary education providers.  "We would like NZQA to do a bit more digging because we want to see whether the changes have actually had the desired impact ... If kids are missing out on UE because they can't fit in to what the universities require as far as subject, then I think that's potentially a problem." [Emphasis, ours.]

Flog the horse harder, Angela.  Yes, raising standards to enter university is OK, but restricting the number of subjects applicable for university matriculation?  Nah.  That strikes at the heart of what NCEA is all about.  Level 3 qualifications in Home Economics (aka, housekeeping) must remain an adequate prerequisite for university matriculation to study, say, the classical poets.  Ridiculous.