Anne Tolley MP National Party Education Spokeswoman

27 May 2008

Education Minister fails homework test

National Party Education spokeswoman Anne Tolley says Education Minister Chris Carter has "failed to do his homework" on statistics which show major problems with NCEA internal assessment.

"Presented with figures that have been in the public domain since April, Chris Carter accused me of 'making up' the figures and said he was briefed weekly by education officials but 'had never heard about such a figure'.

"Mr Carter was wrong."

Mrs Tolley is referring to information provided by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to the media in March 2008 which found nearly a third of internal assessment marks were incorrect.

"When I offered to table the figures for the Minister to see them himself, he didn't want to know about them.

"Furthermore, the Education and Science Select Committee called back NZQA in their financial review to discuss these issues. NZQA admitted the stats were true, with Deputy Chief Executive Bali Haque saying 'the standards that we're talking about haven't been properly understood by teachers'.

"When the Minister refuses to acknowledge a situation that puts in doubt the marks of up to a third of our NCEA students, you'd think he'd be doing his homework."

ENDS

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