Ross Preece A review of NCEA was long overdue, but some of the proposed changes could take education back around 40 years, Ashburton College principal Ross Preece says.

While he supported many of the proposed changes, he is concerned about a new literacy assessment standard that would be assessed externally.

The requirement to achieve a pass mark in this would be similar to the old school certificate exams where a pass in English was required to achieve the certificate, regardless of marks in other subjects, he said.

“Many schools with low literacy level kids will be worried about this.

“It may prove an impossible barrier, depending on the school and the kids, and for kids where English is a second language,” he said.

He is concerned the test would also disadvantage students who may be exceptional and achieved high marks in areas such as arts, maths or science but who were not strong in literacy and numeracy.

“This is the thing most principals will be concerned about; it’s fine if you have a school full of advantaged kids, but it’s going back to the high stakes, high anxiety situation – for staff, students and parents.”

Exam focused school certificate and the requirement to pass English created anxiety and the new assessment was likely to create the same anxiety.

Today that anxiety would be more intense because so many students already had high anxiety levels, he said.

Preece applauded the government’s move to scrap NCEA fees saying that would be a significant advantage for cash-strapped families.

“I know of students who passed NCEA but didn’t get credits because their family didn’t have the money for the fee,” Preece said.

There was a remission fee that could be applied for but relied on families completing forms and filing these prior to exams.

There were wins for teachers in the change to having half of 20 credit subjects assessed internally and half externally because of reduced marking time, but for many students that could be quite negative, he said.

“External assessment is less reliable because you know the kids will be more anxious and we know that over the years with NZQA there have been some quite horrendous rogue exams.”

There were fish hooks as well as good and bad elements to the review, Preece said.

“Like all proposals, the devil with this will be in the detail.

“We’re waiting for more information.

“We’ve been given a glossy 16 page report and while it’s well thought out, there are no timelines.

“We’ve got no problems with reviewing NCEA, it’s timely.

“What is worrying every principal is what barriers will this literacy assessment be to overall student achievement – and the nature of this assessment.”

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 16 May 2019