Dave Gee: Life from Right Field

The Herald on Sunday has today picked up on just how corrupt and useless the NCEA education system really is.

The NZ Qualifications Authority is encouraging schools to let students re-sit tests as many times as they want, and allowing teachers to add up marks from different failed tests to produce a pass. ?!? What The?!!

What's more, the NZQA has slammed the actions of two quality schools, because they preferred to keep things on the level.

Tawa College was ordered to review its policy of not allowing students to resit tests or exams they have failed... while Karamu High School was told its policy of only letting students take a test twice was too strict and "contrary to national practice".
Labour's Education Minister, Smarmy Maharey continues to defend NCEA, and is dismissive of outside examinations like the Cambridge exams adopted by many good schools.

This of course is a continuation of the long downward trend in education standards (and not just in New Zealand). Unfortunately under today's "new age" theories in schools, students should never be exposed to failure, and their work should never be criticised.

As David Farrar points out over at Kiwiblog, the NCEA record does not record failure, so a potential employer cannot tell the difference between someone who passed on their first go, and someone who took ten times to pass... possibly even by combining a couple of "failed" test results together ;-(

* NZ Herald: NZQA accused on tests
* DPF's Kiwiblog: More NCEA nonsense