Bill English MP
National Party Education Spokesman

16 July 2006

Labour just can't get NCEA right

"Labour simply can't continue to brush over the serious problems with NCEA when thousands of students are still getting the wrong results," says national Party Education spokesman Bill English.

He is commenting on revelations contained in an investigative report published today by the Herald on Sunday which looks into NCEA internal assessment

The reports revealed:
- 40% of the internal assessments checked by NQZA are wrong
- The results aren't changed even when the assessment task is wrong
- Teachers can, and do, lift individual results
- Teachers decide which assessments they send in for checking

"Students will never know that their result was wrong and by the time the school finds out it's too late to change the results," Mr English says.

"It's just not fair to students. And these slack checking systems undermine standards.

"All Steve Maharey's done is sweep the problems under the rug."

Mr English says these revelations come just a few weeks after a major report showing students can pick an easy way through NCEA by sidestepping difficult subjects and exam questions.

"The first step to fixing these fundamental problems is for Mr Maharey to acknowledge that problems actually exist. Surely a reliable exam system for our kids is the more important than Labour's embarrassment," says Mr English.

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