Mallard Sentences Kids to Another Year of NCEA

Friday 9 Aug 2002

Parents, teachers and children will greet the news that NCEA will steamroll ahead with horror, ACT Education Spokesman Donna Awatere Huata said today.

"Trevor Mallard is determined to steamroll ahead with his ideological changes to our examination system without a care for the chaos in our schools.

"Mr Mallard is disregarding the 83 percent of teachers who strongly believe NCEA should not continue in its current form.

"Mr Mallard's decision sentences children to receiving a valueless, meaningless qualification that has no respect from employers in New Zealand or abroad.

"Mr Mallard today criticised kids for taking too many credits. They are doing so because the NCEA is such a dumbed-down system. Mr Mallard's expectation that many schools will only offer external assessment next year shows what little faith educators have in the NCEA. It shows that schools clearly want an external model that Mr Mallard refuses to deliver.

"This decision reinforces an elitist, unfair system - if your mum and dad can afford to send you to an independent school with a decent qualification instead of the NCEA, you're going to get a massive head-start.

"I am bitterly disappointed that United Future cares so little about education that it did not fight to even review NCEA.

"There is clearly no party in Government or supporting it which is committed to lifting standards in the classroom," Mrs Awatere Huata said.

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