NCEA dissatisfaction highlights need for choice

A drop in public confidence in the NCEA highlights the need for choice in New Zealand schools, ACT Education spokesman Deborah Coddington said today.

A new NZQA-commissioned ACNeilsen poll, released today, reveals an increasing number of employers and parents believe the NCEA is leading to lower standards.

"This survey confirms that the NCEA is not the `triumph' Education Minister Trevor Mallard would have the public believe," Miss Coddington said.

"It's becoming more clear by the day that parents, children, students and employers want schools to offer a mix of New Zealand and international qualifications.

"ACT believes schools should be allowed to dump the NCEA. It's unfair for Mr Mallard to force his 'one-size-fits-all' standards-based assessment system on our children.

"Parents wanting the option of returning to external and national exams, which would raise education standards and better equip young Kiwis for the world stage, should give their party vote to ACT in 2005," 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>>