Secondary principals encouraged by NCEA changes

Media Release
30 May 2007

Secondary principals encouraged by NCEA changes

The Government’s NCEA changes show it is committed to improving the NCEA, but they should be viewed as a beginning, New Zealand Secondary Principals’ Council (NZSPC) chair Arthur Graves said today.

“We are pleased that they are doing something but we don’t want these changes to be seen as the end of the process.

“There are other issues that need to be addressed, such as the debate about the relative merits of unit and achievement standards, and timelines to be put in place to ensure these are dealt with.

“We are particularly happy with the concept of endorsement by excellence and merit. We are also pleased that there will be genuine consultation with the sector over endorsement of subjects as under the NCEA this is not a straightforward exercise.

“The moderation changes demonstrate good support for teachers in schools. Moderation is a huge workload pressure on teachers and often because workload is so intense there is an impact on quality, so the provision of full-time moderators is a positive move.”

However, Mr Graves said NZSPC disagreed with the decision to report Not Achieved results. “It undermines the basic philosophy of NCEA which is about recording what people are achieving, not what they are not achieving.

“The worry is that this is a sop to the people who want league tables, which are not conducive to learning and absolutely destructive for some schools.

“We don’t record failure in people’s jobs. Why should we for students?”

ENDS

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