Nothing trivial about NCEA exam brouhaha

AS a former chairman of the New Zealand History Teachers’ Association and the leader of the group responsible for writing the realigned history achievement standards currently being assessed in the NCEA exams, I am intrigued by the NZQA spokeswoman’s attempt to defend the indefensible.

I refer to the article ‘‘Use of

‘trivial’ in exam sparks nationwide petition’’ (ODT, 17.11.18 ), which highlights yet again a fundamental flaw in NCEA, that of a traditional endofyear external exam system being used to assess learning outcomes derived from standards.

Indeed, the use of the word ‘‘trivial’’ is not the main issue here but the fact that students were expected to interpret a quote, which was not part of the standard on which the essay question should have been based.

It is no surprise that, year after year, we read of issues with NCEA exam questions (remember the level 1 maths debacle in 2017) not reflecting the actual standard and consequently students (and their teachers) feeling justifiably aggrieved.

Rather than blaming students for their purported limited vocabulary, NZQA personnel should look at their own exam questionsetting processes and consider the original philosophy behind a transparent NCEA standardsbased qualification.

John Downes

Mornington