New secondary qualifications system projected to fail more young people

The modelling, carried out by BERL for PPTA Te Wehengarua, shows that in 2025 18,000 out of 64,000 students did not achieve Level 2 NCEA. Based on the changes that are currently designed for the new NZ Certificate of Education, an additional 14,930 current achievers would also be put at risk each year because their current NCEA achievement does not align with the new certificate’s requirement to pass at least three subjects.

More than half of the students at schools whose communities have high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage, and who are currently achieving NCEA Level 2, would be at risk of not attaining the new qualification for this reason. This is a major threat to these individual students and places a much greater burden on these schools than others to change the way they deliver their programmes to conform to the new system.

Chris Abercrombie, president of PPTA Te Wehengarua, says the research confirms what many in the education sector fear about these changes. “More young people will leave school without a meaningful qualification and most of them will be Māori, Pacific, vulnerable, and with high needs.

“These projections are truly alarming and unacceptable. We need an education system that is going to enable more young people to achieve, not one that is going to leave tens of thousands more of them behind.

“The Minister needs to release the student achievement modelling that she has relied on to make decisions about how the new qualifications will operate.  It is not too late for the Minister to make changes to the new qualifications system considering what the research shows.”

The research found that second to the impact of these changes on students was evidence-based concern about implementation. “Schools need certainty, adequate resources delivered on time, comprehensive professional development and time – not reform layered on top of an already stretched system with no additional capacity to deliver it.”

The research also identified hidden costs, e.g. relief teacher coverage, leadership time, learning resources, of up to $58m for schools across the country. These financial burdens are likely to be felt disproportionately by less advantaged and smaller schools.

Chris Abercrombie urged the Minister of Education to heed the warnings being sounded by this research. “We are not opposed to change, but it must be planned carefully and resourced adequately. And it simply cannot be allowed to fail tens of thousands more of our most vulnerable young people.”

PPTA calls on the Minister to:

·         Provide modelling of the changes in regard to student achievement and teaching workforce requirements; and

·         Urgently fund a comprehensive package of support for schools to prepare for and implement the qualifications and assessment changes. 

Read the BERL reports