Speaker 1: Kiota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The National
Speaker 2: Certificate of Educational Achievement or NCEA, has been New Zealand's
Speaker 2: main secondary school qualification for more than twenty years now,
Speaker 2: but its future could be on the line as more
Speaker 2: top schools plan to offer alternatives and a government briefing
Speaker 2: raised concerns about its credibility.
Speaker 3: So is NCEA really as bad as.
Speaker 2: It's made out to be? And what would be the
Speaker 2: benefit of switching your kid over to another option?
Speaker 1: Out there?
Speaker 3: Today?
Speaker 2: On the front Page, Doctor Nina Hood from the Education
Speaker 2: Hub is with us to discuss the future of high
Speaker 2: schooling in New Zealand. Nina.
Speaker 3: In the last few.
Speaker 2: Weeks weeks, we've seen EPSOM Girls' Grammar announce it will
Speaker 2: offer Cambridge exams next year. Mount Albert Grammar's principle has
Speaker 2: said it's under pressure to offer it as well, and
Speaker 2: Auckland Grammar's principle wants it scrapped entirely. Are you surprised
Speaker 2: to see this push away from n the CEA?
Speaker 4: Not really, I think we've seen it happen over a
Speaker 4: number of years.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So since NCIA came out in the early two thousands,
Speaker 4: we've had a number of schools that have started.
Speaker 3: To offer alternative qualifications.
Speaker 4: So this has been something that's been consistent with NCA
Speaker 4: throughout the.
Speaker 3: Whole time that we've had it.
Speaker 4: I think the latest round of schools saying actually, maybe
Speaker 4: we are going to consider something else is in part
Speaker 4: a reflection of frustrations about some of the more recent
Speaker 4: things that have happened with NCA.
Speaker 3: But I think what we've also.
Speaker 4: Seen is that last month there was a briefing paper
Speaker 4: given to the government which outlined a whole host of
Speaker 4: issues with the qualification, and I think that's possibly spurred
Speaker 4: some schools to really reconsider what they're.
Speaker 2: Doing, what are some of the concerns and issues evolving
Speaker 2: from it.
Speaker 4: So I think there are a number of things that
Speaker 4: have been identified. One is around a lack of consistency.
Speaker 4: So we know that the way that the qualification works,
Speaker 4: students can sit individual standards, so they're not necessarily doing
Speaker 4: a whole body of work within a single subject. They're able,
Speaker 4: to some degree peck and queues. This has led to
Speaker 4: some students in some schools just opting into what are
Speaker 4: perceived to be easiest standards. In many instances, it is
Speaker 4: meant that students are getting the qualification just through sitting
Speaker 4: internal assessments, so doing course work during the year that's
Speaker 4: marked by school teachers. And what we know about the
Speaker 4: internals from research that's happened over a number of years
Speaker 4: is that in many cases they suffer from great inflation,
Speaker 4: so there's not always a lot of validity about it.
Speaker 4: And so you've got students who are not necessarily sitting
Speaker 4: the external exams either. So there are a whole host
Speaker 4: of different issues, and I think another thing that's come
Speaker 4: up is that the qualification is not necessarily easily internationally
Speaker 4: comparable either.
Speaker 2: So the suggestion of picking and choosing is that where
Speaker 2: the gaming the system chat comes from.
Speaker 4: It is the gaming the system part of it. So
Speaker 4: depending there are different ways that you can achieve your qualification.
Speaker 4: And so what a lot of students are doing is
Speaker 4: thinking how can I utilize the flexibility that's built into
Speaker 4: NCA to ensure that I get the qualification? And in
Speaker 4: some instances, but it's really important to stress this is
Speaker 4: not happening in all schools or in all instances, they say,
Speaker 4: how can I pick so called easier credits in order
Speaker 4: to build up my qualification, rather than say, sitting the
Speaker 4: entirety of your level three maths paper, you say, I'll
Speaker 4: pick this set of this standard here, this standard here,
Speaker 4: in order to build it up, rather than saying, actually,
Speaker 4: I'm just going to sit a full year thirteen Maths
Speaker 4: course or a whole year thirteen English course.
Speaker 2: And why wouldn't you though, if that option was available
Speaker 2: to you. Of course these kids are going to go
Speaker 2: for the easier option.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it is a very rational response to
Speaker 4: the way that the qualification set up, right, so you
Speaker 4: can't blame them for doing this. And one of the
Speaker 4: other things that we know is happening is that you
Speaker 4: need to get a certain number of credits in order
Speaker 4: to pass each level of NCA. Well, for some students
Speaker 4: they get the necessary credits just through internal assessments during
Speaker 4: the year, and as a result, they're not sitting the
Speaker 4: end of your exams.
Speaker 3: Again, incredibly rational behavior.
Speaker 4: Why would you sit for an exam if it's actually
Speaker 4: not going to you don't need it in order to
Speaker 4: pass the qualification. From a purely learning point of view,
Speaker 4: of course, you want them to be doing that, and
Speaker 4: of course you want them to be engaging with the
Speaker 4: full scope of the work. But the way the qualification
Speaker 4: set up means that you don't use this Sily have to.
Speaker 2: What are some of the stats or research that you've
Speaker 2: seen around in CEA. Is it getting into a crisis mode?
Speaker 3: Should we be worried?
Speaker 4: So we know that an increasing number of schools are
Speaker 4: no longer offering level one, so that's what students normally
Speaker 4: set in year eleven. So I think it's around twenty
Speaker 4: five to thirty percent of schools are no longer offering
Speaker 4: a level one qualification. In many instances, it's because level
Speaker 4: one is not seen to be a particularly I mean,
Speaker 4: it doesn't lead to a lot now right, So what
Speaker 4: the research would tell us is that students who get
Speaker 4: level one and only level one are not necessarily better
Speaker 4: off in terms of their employment opportunities compared to students
Speaker 4: who don't get level one, and that sort of the
Speaker 4: low eventchmark really for qualifications is your level two what
Speaker 4: you normally do in year twelve. So as a result
Speaker 4: of a lot of schools are dropping that and that
Speaker 4: does raise questions if you have a growing number of
Speaker 4: schools across the country saying actually we're not going to
Speaker 4: offer one level of the nationalqual Alification system. You do
Speaker 4: have to start asking questions about what's going on.
Speaker 3: Are you going to blow it up?
Speaker 5: When are you going to everything's on the table, because genuinely,
Speaker 5: there's nothing more important than getting our kids well educated.
Speaker 5: I speak to a lot of parents, teachers, principles. They
Speaker 5: have really serious concerns about NCAA and the danger as
Speaker 5: you can go through an exercise where you reassured that
Speaker 5: you're getting well educated because you're getting different getting through
Speaker 5: the NCAA system. But the thing for me and for
Speaker 5: the parents and teachers that I run into is, are
Speaker 5: our kids at fifteen sixteen as well educated as their
Speaker 5: counterparts in Australia or Canada or Ireland or something else
Speaker 5: we went to. We can't. That's got to be globally comparable.
Speaker 5: And secondarity, are we actually teaching them the basics and
Speaker 5: giving them a core educational program that actually sets them
Speaker 5: up well for working life?
Speaker 2: Is there some old fashioned thinking here as well? I mean,
Speaker 2: I feel like a certain generation is just fixated on
Speaker 2: that idea of end of year exams being the be
Speaker 2: all and then all right, And I remember, I'm not
Speaker 2: giving away my age, but it was certainly that way
Speaker 2: when I finished high school as well. But it is
Speaker 2: true that that kind of one size fits all approach
Speaker 2: doesn't work for every kid, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the things, one of the
Speaker 4: reasons why NCA was brought in and the way that
Speaker 4: it was brought in was to create a degree.
Speaker 3: Of flexibility within our schooling system.
Speaker 4: So it enabled students to receive a qualification by putting
Speaker 4: together different series of standards, different sets of credits.
Speaker 3: To form a pathway that was going to work for them.
Speaker 4: And I think whenever we're thinking about our qualification system,
Speaker 4: we want to be ensuring that we have pathways for
Speaker 4: different types of students.
Speaker 3: I think what's.
Speaker 4: Happened on the flip side, though, is that that's potentially
Speaker 4: gone a little bit too far and we need to
Speaker 4: actually look at some of what's going on in there.
Speaker 4: So there are definitely things that we need to strengthen,
Speaker 4: and you know, there are steps that we could take
Speaker 4: that would strengthen it. And I mean, personally, I think
Speaker 4: that probably is a role for indo viewer exams, but
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that that's the only method that we
Speaker 4: want to be using and we know that in a
Speaker 4: number of subjects, actually having internals is also really important
Speaker 4: because there are things that you just can't assess through
Speaker 4: an ind of viewer exam.
Speaker 2: So since we're talking about alternatives, let's look at the
Speaker 2: big two that are offered. Hey, so Cambridge and the
Speaker 2: International Backer Laureates, which I've heard referred to as IB
Speaker 2: for FS reasons. So what are they and how do
Speaker 2: they differ from in CEA?
Speaker 4: Sure, so Cambridge is out of the UK, IB is
Speaker 4: out of Switzerland, and you're right, the other two big
Speaker 4: international qualifications that are used around the world, but also
Speaker 4: a number of New Zealand schools are utilizing. So in Cambridge,
Speaker 4: that's probably your most traditional So if you're thinking back
Speaker 4: to sort of what it used to be like, it's
Speaker 4: quite similar to what Cambridge is. You would normally in
Speaker 4: your final two years of school. So the program runs
Speaker 4: across the final two years of school, so you're year
Speaker 4: twelve and year thirteen. Students are usually taking four maybe
Speaker 4: five subjects in that and they are primarily assessed through
Speaker 4: an end of year exam, although some subjects do have
Speaker 4: some internal assessment component built into that, but you do
Speaker 4: have far more of an exam focus. You know, you
Speaker 4: pick the subjects that you're going to do and you
Speaker 4: do the entirety of that subject, so you don't have
Speaker 4: a subject made up of individual standards that you can
Speaker 4: pick and choose on. You just sit that subject. International
Speaker 4: Facalaureat I'd be in some way similar, but it's a
Speaker 4: more holistic system. So again it runs over the final
Speaker 4: two years of school, So it's a two year course
Speaker 4: and it comprises a max of both external exams at
Speaker 4: the end of your course as well as a number
Speaker 4: of internal assessments. I think one of the key differences
Speaker 4: between IV and Cambridge is that in ID you do
Speaker 4: do more subjects, and you also are required to take
Speaker 4: a range of different subjects. So for instance, you take
Speaker 4: a science, you take maths, you take English, you learn
Speaker 4: a language, you do a humanity or social science.
Speaker 3: But you also have.
Speaker 4: Learning that you do in activities that you do outside
Speaker 4: of your sort of academic program.
Speaker 3: So they have.
Speaker 4: Something called the theory of Knowledge, which is really around
Speaker 4: philosophy that all students take. All students are required to
Speaker 4: do what they call CASS, which stands for Creativity Activity
Speaker 4: in service, So you have to do something creative so
Speaker 4: that might be music, it might be drama, it might
Speaker 4: be dance. You have to do activity, which is some
Speaker 4: sort of sport or physical activity, and some sort of
Speaker 4: service activity. So you're getting quite a holistic, sort of
Speaker 4: well rounded aspect to your education. And you also do
Speaker 4: what they call the extended essay. You pick one of
Speaker 4: the subjects that you're doing and you do an in
Speaker 4: depth research project in it. So it is a very holistic,
Speaker 4: broad qualification, right.
Speaker 2: And when I asked, because I'm not from this land,
Speaker 2: so I asked a few people around the office which
Speaker 2: ones that they did are, ninety nine percent said that
Speaker 2: they did n CAEA. And when I asked about the
Speaker 2: Cambridge and IB a couple of comments were like, well,
Speaker 2: they're just like kind of for rich schools or people
Speaker 2: who want to do UNI.
Speaker 3: At like Oxford or something. I mean, is that a
Speaker 3: fair assessment? I mean, I think yes and no.
Speaker 4: I mean, one thing I would say is that you
Speaker 4: can get into universities around the world sitting in CEA.
Speaker 4: So I wouldn't want anyone to think, oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be a up to go to
Speaker 4: somewhere else to do my university. Because I did NCA.
Speaker 4: That's absolutely not true, you can. I think you're right
Speaker 4: in saying that in many cases it's your larger secondary
Speaker 4: schools from you know, wealthier areas that are opting to
Speaker 4: do these alternative qualifications. In the case of IB, that's
Speaker 4: because it's actually really expensive to do IB for a
Speaker 4: school to set up IB, and part of the reason
Speaker 4: for that is that all teachers who are teaching IB
Speaker 4: have to go through quite a rigorous training program in
Speaker 4: order to be able to teach IB, and in most instances,
Speaker 4: those training programs happen off shore, so schools are having
Speaker 4: to fund teachers to go off shore to participate in
Speaker 4: their training. But you're definitely right in that it is
Speaker 4: largely our larger secondary schools from higher socioeconomic areas that
Speaker 4: are opting to do these alternative pathways.
Speaker 1: In CEA is still a good qualification. It's just not
Speaker 1: consistent and it can be massively improved. And that's the key.
Speaker 1: I don't want to stand here today and say, Lo,
Speaker 1: the MCA is terrible. It's still a very good qualification.
Speaker 1: Many students still end up in high quality universities all
Speaker 1: over the world. Many people are still choosing it over
Speaker 1: other qualifications, but there is a lot that we can
Speaker 1: do to strengthen it, to make it more consistent, to
Speaker 1: make parents understand it. I mean, why on earth can
Speaker 1: we not go back to a markout of one hundred
Speaker 1: for goodness sake. ABC, I've got my children coming home
Speaker 1: saying I only had to answer two of the questions
Speaker 1: to get excellent. But what do you mean you didn't
Speaker 1: have to answer all of the questions? Oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just the excellence one.
Speaker 3: What are the results like?
Speaker 2: Is there any better?
Speaker 4: That's a really hard question to answer, right, because what
Speaker 4: we know is that in many of these schools actually
Speaker 4: they retain INCA as well, So you have some students
Speaker 4: doing nca you do have some students doing Cambridge or
Speaker 4: International Baccalaureate, So it's really hard to make a direct comparison.
Speaker 4: It's also really hard to compare results with the NCAA
Speaker 4: with results actually in either of the other qualifications because
Speaker 4: the way that their assessed is slightly different, So you
Speaker 4: can't make a direct comparison.
Speaker 2: I guess in terms of those three qualifications, would you
Speaker 2: recommend one over the other or does it just depend
Speaker 2: on the kid.
Speaker 4: So I'm always a big advocate and just about anything
Speaker 4: in education and saying you match it to the child.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think IB could definitely suit some people.
Speaker 4: But if you've got someone who has a particular interest
Speaker 4: in certain subjects, he's actually really not going to suit
Speaker 4: them because you're having to do a wide range of subjects,
Speaker 4: you know, and that's where INCA can be really valuable,
Speaker 4: because you can start to specialize in particular subjects. I
Speaker 4: think the other thing that we haven't touched on that's
Speaker 4: really critically important when we're thinking about any qualification system,
Speaker 4: and particularly if we're thinking about well, what where do
Speaker 4: we go next to New Zealand, is that alongside any
Speaker 4: sort of more academically oriented qualification system, we also need
Speaker 4: to make sure that we've got a really strong vocational
Speaker 4: education and a training system running alongside that, because we
Speaker 4: know that there are a number of children in our
Speaker 4: school for whom that is the right pathway for them.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day.
Speaker 2: And this is something that I found interesting when talking
Speaker 2: to a couple of the younger ones in the office
Speaker 2: as well. Does it still seem like if you don't
Speaker 2: do well in year thirteen that that is the end
Speaker 2: of your life? You know that feeling of just say,
Speaker 2: I'm like, is it the same? Because I remember where
Speaker 2: it was year twelve back where I'm from, and I
Speaker 2: remember getting my results back and there being a discrepancy
Speaker 2: or something, and I, honestly, god, I thought, this is it.
Speaker 2: This is the end. I'm never going to amount to
Speaker 2: anything in my entire life.
Speaker 3: Is that still drilled into kids these days. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: a really interesting question.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the qualifications that you get at
Speaker 4: the end of school are always going to be important
Speaker 4: because you know, it's at that age that's sort of
Speaker 4: the barrier or frontier between that and the next thing
Speaker 4: that you're going to go on to do. And you know,
Speaker 4: particularly for students who are wanting to go on to university,
Speaker 4: then yeah, that is really important. But it's a really
Speaker 4: interesting question to explore and to ask because we also
Speaker 4: know that there are changing dynamics, and you know, there
Speaker 4: are people around the world who are questioning more and
Speaker 4: more the value of university and whether it's the right
Speaker 4: pathway for different people to be pursuing. But I think
Speaker 4: by and large, there is still a perception, definitely among
Speaker 4: broader society that qualifications in school do matter, that they
Speaker 4: do still stand for something.
Speaker 2: And just lastly, Nina, if you could change anything about
Speaker 2: the system tomorrow. So you've got Erica Stamford on the phone.
Speaker 2: She's like, yes, Nina, I will do whatever you tell me.
Speaker 2: I'll do it today. What's the first thing that you
Speaker 2: would tackle?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think what you've got to do is
Speaker 4: you've got to make sure that our qualification system is
Speaker 4: being based off our curriculum. Right, in an ideal world,
Speaker 4: what you do is you write a really great curriculum
Speaker 4: and then you design an assessment system that actually enables
Speaker 4: you to assess how well the students have progressed through
Speaker 4: that particular curriculum. NCA hasn't actually worked like that. It
Speaker 4: has operated distinct from the curriculum, in part because there
Speaker 4: are a whole host of issues with the current curriculum,
Speaker 4: although those are being addressed by the work that's currently
Speaker 4: underway and redeveloping the curriculum. But essentially, what you have
Speaker 4: is a qualification system and a set of standards that
Speaker 4: are defining the curriculum as it is at the moment.
Speaker 3: So we need to flip that.
Speaker 4: We need to say, what's our curriculum, make sure it's
Speaker 4: really rigorous and robust, and then design a qualification system
Speaker 4: that enables us to reliably and validly test that.
Speaker 2: Right, so what you've been learning during the year actually
Speaker 2: shows up in the end of your exam.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I think you know, one of the things
Speaker 4: we could also do because we know we have an
Speaker 4: issue with internal assessments at the moment with NCAA, and
Speaker 4: we don't want to get rid of them completely.
Speaker 3: We want to have certain.
Speaker 4: Aspects, of course in a program that are internally assessed,
Speaker 4: but we need to find a way to make that
Speaker 4: internal assessment more robust, and there are a number of
Speaker 4: ways that.
Speaker 3: We could do that.
Speaker 4: One is that you could say, actually, it's not the
Speaker 4: classroom teachers that are going to be marking those internals.
Speaker 4: They're all going to be centrally marked. And that's what
Speaker 4: some of the other international qualification systems do. They don't
Speaker 4: enable individual schools to mark their own students' work. They
Speaker 4: send them out centrally and they're marked centrally. I think
Speaker 4: the other thing we could do with our current system,
Speaker 4: if we were to keep it the way it is,
Speaker 4: is to actually not tell students their internal assessment grades
Speaker 4: until the end of the year. Because that would then
Speaker 4: force them to actually continue to engage in the learning
Speaker 4: that they have to do right, And what we have
Speaker 4: is students that basically say, oh, I've got all my credits,
Speaker 4: I'm going to stop learning part.
Speaker 3: Way through the year.
Speaker 4: Well that's ridiculous. They're just losing out on all that
Speaker 4: potentially valuable learning. So we could find a way to
Speaker 4: try and stop that from happening as well.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us, Nina, my pleasure.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzedherld dot co dot nz.
Speaker 3: The Front Page is produced by.
Speaker 2: Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on
Speaker 2: Monday for another look behind the headlines.