Employers misled by NZQA across all NCEA results

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005

Employers misled by NZQA across all NCEA results

The NCEA fiasco is not confined to the Scholarship year but affects levels one and two at least to the same extent, the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern) says.

"Not only has the NCEA been shown to be inconsistent between schools, but the data now available since the start of the NCEA shows no consistency from year to year," said Alasdair Thompson, EMA's chief executive.

"An analysis of NCEA results in 2003 and 2004 from NZQA's own data shows variations in course pass rates ranging from plus 37 per cent to minus 31 per cent.

"This is variation on a massive scale.

"Only about a third of 152 Achievement Standards were within five per cent variance between the two years.

"The PPTA has said a five per cent variation is the maximum acceptable for any course yet two thirds of the results are outside this range.

"Many thousands of students appear to have passed or failed the NCEA lottery depending on what subjects they studied and its hopelessly unfair on them.

"The NCEA is a 'standards based assessment' system for which the so called standards have not been defined and are therefore not assessable.

"On January 11th NZQA chief executive Ms Van Rooyen said in a statement 'that standards of achievement between schools are consistent nationally, and consistent year to year.'

"She added that 'we know NCEA is consistent across the board because every year the Qualifications Authority samples marked work from every subject at every school in the country.'

"These assertions have now been shown to be false.

"Employers will find it is impossible to place any faith in NCEA results unless the system's integrity and credibility are totally restored.

"To address this, EMA supports a full scale review of the NCEA system by experts in educational results measurement and who are independent of NZQA and politically."

ENDS

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