Mallard Must Step In Over Exam Row, Says ACT

ACT New Zealand Education Spokesman Deborah Coddington today urged Education Minister Trevor Mallard to investigate the New Zealand Qualifications Authority's refusal to reconsider making some high school students sit three exams in one day.

"On National Radio today, Wellington College Principal Roger Moses said that two students at his school, and many others around the country, are being forced to sit three exams within a matter of hours, Miss Coddington said.

"Sitting one exam in a day is hard enough. Two can be an exhausting. Three is just too much. While these students could achieve their full potential in the first exam - and maybe the second - chances are that fatigue will prevent them from doing their best come the third.

"Mr Moses' solution - an offer to supervise his students so that they could sit one of their exams the next day - was refused outright by the NZQA.

"This, despite a draft exam timetable prepared by the NZQA earlier in the year, that showed no subject clashes. It was not until early June that Mr Moses received a copy of the final timetable showing his students would face three exams in one day.

"NZQA's only suggestion upon being notified of the problem was that the students should change subjects - half way through the year.

"This is abhorrent. These are hard-working, gifted children who have done everything that can be expected to succeed. Now the NZQA is making unreasonable demands which could see all their hard work over the past year go down the drain.

"These children deserve a fair go, and Mr Mallard must step in and come up with a solution as soon as possible. The NZQA should be celebrating achievement, not punishing these students for working hard," Miss Coddington said.

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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>>