ACT Education Spokesman Donna Awatere Huata - the only politician who has consistently opposed the National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) - today warned of a bleak future if the flawed scheme is implemented.

"We are going to have a two-tier education scheme in New Zealand: decent schools are going to offer baccalaureate or A Level examinations, while second-rate institutions will only provide the NCEA.

"We are already seeing the split. Brave principals are standing up and rejecting the NCEA while others ignore huge concerns and going along with the scheme.

"Wealthy, high-performing schools are refusing to have anything to do with the Certificate. They have the luxury of being able to afford to look at other options. Poorer schools don't. Our most destitute kids - Maori and Pacific Island youth - are going to suffer.

"Employers are going to judge our kids based on the name of their school, because the NCEA doesn't give them any other way to accurately gauge performance.

"Trevor Mallard is pushing through the NCEA at the cost of the future of thousands of our kids," Donna Awatere Huata said today.

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>>