Hon Bill English
National Party Education Spokesman

3 September 2006

Labour school qualification figures fraudulent

Figures released last week on the proportion of young New Zealanders leaving school without qualifications are fraudulent, says National Education spokesman Bill English.

“Under Labour, students have to gain only 20% of the equivalent of School Certificate to be counted as gaining a qualification.

“Labour claims only 13% of school leavers leave without a qualification. However their definition of a qualification is 13 or more credits at any level of NCEA.

“In fact students have to gain 80 credits to achieve the basic school qualification NCEA level One – which is equivalent to School Certificate.

“Twenty seven percent of students leave secondary school without Level One NCEA.

“So Labour is counting thousands of students who fail Level One as successes. A student with only 13 credits does not have a qualification. They need 80 credits.

“This is another example of Labour dropping standards to hide failure.

“Only those students who get the qualification should count.

“The reality is 27% of students leaving school have nothing to show for it, about the same proportion who fail the national standard for literacy.”

ENDS

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