In the first three weeks of Term 4 2010, the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA) surveyed members on their perceptions of the workload pressures being engendered by the current phase of change to the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), New Zealand’s standards-based school qualification system.
The cost of change : PPTA survey on NCEA workload 2010 (February 2011)
NCEA change - the standards review
The current phase of change to the NCEA, New Zealand’s standards-based school qualification system is commonly called “the alignment project” or “the standards review”.
These changes have been caused by the need to revise achievement standards to match them to the new curriculum, but also by a government decision to use the opportunity to address other issues with NCEA. These included:
- Duplication of standards, especially between achievement and unit standards, which was resolved by making all curriculum-referenced standards achievement standards;
- Application of a firm policy that all Level 1 standards must assess the achievement objectives of Level 6 of the NZ Curriculum;
- A lack of credit parity between standards;
- Exams in some subjects that offered assessment for as many as five separate standards in one three hour exam;
- The introduction of course endorsement, originally called ‘subject endorsement’.
Addressing all of these issues in one project, while probably sensible, has led to a huge scale of change.
NCEA changes are presenting major challenges for all teachers
"The cost of change" provides a detailed picture that suggests the changes to NCEA that are being implemented from 2011 to 2013 are presenting some major challenges for all teachers, and teachers in some subjects, roles and schools are feeling these challenges disproportionately.
The survey provides useful fine-grained data about these pressure points, and officials need to take this into account in ongoing planning of support.
The qualitative data conveys a picture of teachers soldiering on, trying to do the best they can for their students in the face of inadequate support.
Change processes of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) have not been adequate
The change processes of the Ministry of Education (MOE) and New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) have not been adequate for a project of this scale. It is almost unbelievable that at one stage, the government was committed to introducing all three levels of revised standards in one year, 2010, and that it required considerable pressure from PPTA to get this changed to phased implementation beginning one year later. Even with the extension to 2011 and the phasing of the levels from 2011 to 2013, NZQA and MOE have had to publish a circular (SecQual 2011/005, dated 2 February) apologising for the fact that some of the promised assessment resources will still be draft until the end of February, long past the date when teachers would have expected to be able to download final versions.
Teachers will be hoping that the finalising of Level 2 and 3 standards and assessment resources with matching exemplars will run to a timeline more appropriate to the needs of schools.
The cost of change : PPTA survey on NCEA workload 2010
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