Living in a Swamp of Quicksand

A Morass of Educational Failures In New Zealand Schools

In New Zealand our upper high school examinations are called the National Certificate in Educational Qualification ("NCEA").  It is a broken system.  It has been from its inception (2002).  We have had 14 years of NCEA and its critics are more animated than ever.  

No other country in the world has been as foolish as the Ministry of Education, its Teacher Union controllers, successive governments, and Education academics.  We take the cake.  We may be generally dumb in this country, but when we decide to have a decent crack at idiocy as a nation, we go all the way.  And we will double down on foolishness for decades, even generations.  None can doubt our zealous enthusiasm for foolishness.

The NCEA was conceived and designed so that everyone would leave school a winner.
 Every pupil would leave with a qualification in something.  It was deliberately intended as an Affirmation System.  It replaced a system where people could actually fail examinations, and left schools without any qualifications whatsoever.  NCEA was going to change all that.

Most readers would be familiar with the politically correct, everyone's a winner, pseudo-affirmation system.  Remember those new entrant, end of year prize-givings?  Every child got an award.  Don't discourage anyone.  Make sure everyone gets affirmed.  Above all, the teachers need affirming.  They need to know that in their classes everyone is a winner.  The NCEA is just one further application of that failed pedagogical philosophy.

Here is the official statement on why the unique NCEA experiment was designed and executed in New Zealand government schools.

In the past students performance in a wider range of competencies and skills was often not taken into account. Exam marks were scaled so that only a certain number of students could pass each year and internal assessments results scaled to match external assessment results, even when assessing completely different skills.

The NCEA system provides a more accurate picture of a student's achievement because a student who has gained credits for a particular standard has demonstrated the required skills and knowledge for that standard. Each student receives a School Results Summary that presents all standards taken throughout their school years, and the results for each, and can order a Record of Achievement listing all standards achieved at school and beyond.

Note the buzz words.  Students would be assessed on a "wider range of competencies".  The sub-text was that everyone was capable of being good at something.  The old system was not recognising these "skills".  Therefore, the range of subjects (standards) to be taught at schools would broaden exponentially, so that in the end every pupil would be a winner at something.  This would provide a "more accurate picture of a student's achievement".

So, in the wonderful world of NCEA, it is theoretically conceivable that an achievement standard could be created around failure.

What is your achievement and skill, my son?

Well, I failed more student achievement standards than any other pupil at my High School.  I topped the achievement standard for failing more standards and subjects than everyone else.  I'm a winner.

Yes you are, my son.

Under NCEA, achievement at something is more important than grasping the fundamental basics of knowledge and learning itself.  Pupils who are functionally illiterate and innumerate can graduate out of our High Schools with certificates of achievement.  They leave affirmed.  Here is a high priestess of the cult reciting the mantra:

"One thing about a qualification system, it should be that no matter what your school or background you've got the opportunity to achieve," said Secondary Principals' Association President Sandy Pasley. [NZ Herald. Emphasis, ours.]

Achieve at what? we ask.  Anything.  It does not matter.  But--and here is the despicable outcome of this benighted system--those "successful" students, all clutching their Certificates of Achievement as they walk out of the school gate for the last time, are smart.  They know that they have been participating in a great con.   They know they can neither read nor write nor compute numbers.  They know they will fail at most jobs.  They know that the achievement standards they are already screwing up and tossing into the gutter are not worth the paper they are printed upon.

And so, now, fourteen years down the track, with ceaseless tweaks, iterations, enhancements, improvements, and Te Reo incantations, NCEA is failing as much as it always has.  It is not the lack of effort.  It is the misguided nature of the enterprise that ensures its failure.

The range of "standards" (subjects) has broadened from the east to the west.  Sitting the external exams in those standards (optional only, in many cases) sees many from Maori, Pacific Island, and lower socio-economic areas opting out of sitting exams, in favour of internal assessments (by their teachers) affirming they have achieved the standard.  Why?  So they can succeed at passing standards.

Educators said there were a number of reasons students at lower deciles had lower exam uptake - including the fact students at those schools were less likely to take subjects that included exams in the first place - whether that be physical education or art; or more vocational subjects like hospitality.

Internal assessments were also considered more well-suited to students with lower literacy and numeracy, as teachers could "scaffold" students into the assessment, allowing them to sit it only when they were ready, and re sit it if appropriate. [Ibid.]

Ah, you just have to love that term, "scaffold".  Sounds very technical and important, non?  It just covers over the pervasive sin of giving pupils a leg up the system so that they will pass an assessment.  And the teachers, whose standing depends upon how successful they are in getting student to achieve, are able to game the system via internal assessments, rather than by external examination.

Johnny has been working on an achievement standard for hammering nails.  Unfortunately, he misses thirty percent of the time (all measured and recorded, of course).  Sixty percent of the time, he mishits the nail, making it bend.  No problems.  The teacher will "scaffold" him into success.  The teacher builds a guide-rail down which the hammer can fall, hitting the nail on the head every time.  There you go.  The student is now thoroughly "scaffolded", and assessment ready.  That's what it means to be a modern teacher.

The core problem--resolutely and deliberately ignored--is that NCEA in principle makes no distinction between foundation subjects upon which all human knowledge and action rests, and other knowledge which is derived from those foundations.  The foundations are what our parents called the Three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic.  If you cannot read or write or compute with numbers, you could have the highest qualifications in Pacifica dance in the country, but you will fail at just about everything else.

If secondary schools had this worked out, one would find that English, language studies, maths and liberal arts would be the core--the hardened core--of every school.  Achieving basic competence in the three R's  would be considered the necessary tools of all learning. If a student was unable to read, write, and do arithmetic, he would be worked and re-worked, educated and re-educated until he could--without a scaffold in sight.  If he failed to achieve competence, it would be due to the student's heart attitudes and character, rather than a failure of the system.

Our view is simple: if a student from a poor, underprivileged, disruptive background could at least leave High School able to read competently, write legibly and coherently, and mathematically numerate, he would be far ahead of the student who could do none of that, but was a whiz at Kapa Haka dance and performance.  But--and here is why our suggestion will not be countenanced by the "experts"--the implication is that schools, teachers, parents and communities would be telling their youth, that if they cannot read, write, and do maths they will set themselves up for impoverishment and failure--even if they are the school's Kapa Haka expert.

Under NCEA, government schools have devoted themselves to offering a smorgasboard of standards, so that everyone can achieve something.  What they have not done is tell students that unless they master the core, everything else they dabble in will be a waste of precious time.