Friday, 6 May 2005

Ogilvy: Replace NZQA, ERO etc with one body

It's time to get rid of the NZQA, the Education Review Office and the Teachers' Council and create one body to maintain educational standards in all schools, United Future's Bernie Ogilvy said in response to today's review of the 2004 Scholarship exam fiasco.

"We need one organisation that covers it all - the Educational Standards Authority - rather than this piecemeal hash of left and right hands flailing about while the education of our young suffers," Mr Ogilvy, United Future's education spokesman, said.

"What the State Services Commission review found was that the difficulties in the scholarship exams were a result of organisational failures at NZQA.

"This is not the first time NZQA has been in the firing line over its implementation of educational standards. Public confidence in it bombed through debacles at Cambridge High School and obfuscating on NCEA non-achievement results - or put simply, failures.

"But frankly, the ERO and the Teachers' Council have also proved themselves weak and ineffective.

"A one-stop Educational Standards Authority would bring about the accountability desperately needed within the education sector." (United Future's NCEA 10-point plan can be found at )

ENDS

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