Students facing NCEA exam mess

The 53,000 students starting their NCEA exams tomorrow face the huge added stress of the Government’s botched introduction of the new qualification, says National’s Education spokesperson Nick Smith.

“The national organisations of teachers, principals and school boards have all been unanimous in their condemnation of the Government’s implementation of the NCEA.

“Ill-prepared software has seen students entered for the wrong exam, different students’ internal assessment results have been interchanged and the wrong fees have been charged.

“While schools have done their best to cover for the errors by the Education Ministry and Qualifications Authority, it is inevitable students will face further problems tomorrow with the first NCEA Level 1 English exam.

“So much is at stake for students sitting their first national school exams and they deserve far better than the mess they have had to endure to date. Internal assessment exemplars have been wrong, rules about re-assessment have differed between schools and the subject matter for tomorrow’s exams has been changing throughout the year.

“What makes the situation even more unfair for these students is that not only are they struggling with the hash the Government has made of implementing level 1, they are also going to be ‘guinea pigs’ again next year. The Government should delay implementing NCEA Level 2 until Level 1 is functioning properly,” says Dr Smith.

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