Thursday, May 15, 2003

Ogilvy applauds Budget NCEA funding

United Future education spokesman Bernie Ogilvy has welcomed the extra funding allocated in today's Budget for ensuring that the NCEA system works properly.

"Last year, I successfully urged Parliament's education select committee to hold an inquiry into the NCEA, in response to concerns from teachers and schools that they simply didn't have the resources to make the new system work well.

"The committee report found, among other things, that the implementation of NCEA was placing a strain on education resources, both at the school and agency level.

"On one hand, schools told us that the new qualifications added to administrative costs such as photocopying, and ancillary and relief staff time. On the other hand, we found that in overseeing the implementation of NCEA in its first year, NZQA needed to make significant improvements in its communication with schools, management of student records and computer software issues, and the provision of assessment standards and exemplars.

"On top of that, NZQA reported that its current spending on NCEA was "not sustainable in the long term", yet two more levels of NCEA are to be introduced over the next two years.

"Having identified these concerns, I asked the Minister to consider increasing funds for these two levels of costs relating specifically to NCEA. I'm delighted that as a result, the Government is putting $33.4 million over four years into the Qualifications Authority and $2.3 million in operations grants to schools delivering NCEA," said Mr Ogilvy.

Ends

© Scoop Media