Trevor Mallard's NCEA will see next year's fifth formers over-assessed and under-educated, National's Education spokesperson Gerry Brownlee said.

"The Education Minister's plans to give students a grade point average mark for each subject under the National Certificate of Educational Achievement are a desperate attempt to address mounting concerns about the qualification.

"The mark the Minister proposes will be no more of an indication of a student's ability than the three unacceptably broad bands of credit, merit and excellence.

"Many parents, principals and teachers will be aghast at this proposal. Most people will look at the grade point average mark and either have no idea what it means or will assume it is a percentage.

"Under Mr Mallard's proposal, a student could get an overall mark of 69 for English but not be able to read 'unseen text'!

"No matter how many calculations are done to come up with the grade point average, the final mark will still not properly reflect a student's performance.

"We must recognise that there is a range of achievement in every classroom and ensure that all students know how well they're doing so they can try to do better. At the end of the year students need to know how well they've done in comparison to their peers," Mr Brownlee said.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>