Call to suspend NCEA level 1 for year

WELLINGTON: A high school principal is asking the prime minister to make changes to the NCEA system this year.

The new school term is set to begin today in a physical distance capacity.

To achieve that, the Government and Ministry of Education has spent $88 million on setting up online remote learning for pupils and teachers, as well as educational broadcasts on two of New Zealand’s television channels. Hard copy packs are also being sent to families that cannot access the internet.

Kaipara College principal Steve McCracken wants the number of credits needed for each level to be reduced, and level 1 suspended altogether.

Yesterday, Mr McCracken told Morning Report his school had found there was severe anxiety among pupils.

‘‘This Covid19 lockdown has been massively disruptive to teaching and learning within all secondary schools.

‘‘In the realms that I operate in, [we] have been discussing whether level 1 would be a valid qualification in 2020. That doesn’t mean to say that it’s going to continue all the way through for future years, but it’s something that some schools are considering in the near future.’’

Mr McCracken sent a letter to the prime minister asking for changes to the NCEA structure.

‘‘As I said in my letter to the prime minister, that the phone calls we’ve made last week have outlined that there’s a severe stress and anxiety around NCEA . . . the qualifications for year 12s and 13s in particular — what that’s going to look like when they move into postsecondary school education.’’

Mr McCracken said the Ministry of Education had done a good job getting the term up and running from today.

‘‘But there’s still going to be those that do not have access to a variety of tools to continue their education.

‘‘Then they do have the TV channels, which is a fantastic initiative and something I really applaud, but we’re still missing that facetoface or that connection from teacher to student.’’

Mr McCracken said online learning would throw up huge inequity issues between different pupils and families.

‘‘So it’s important that each school and each individual is catered for.

‘‘And one thing that we’re kind of suggesting is that each family have a meeting bubble every morning and plan out their day so that they can communicate and within that is the sharing of devices or sharing of resource or actually just being present as a family to help our learners out.’’

Education Secretary Iona Holsted told Nine to Noon that schools already had the option to drop NCEA level 1 if they thought it would be more beneficial for their pupils.

‘‘In terms of NCEA more generally, what we’ve done is look back at what the impact of the Christchurch earthquakes was on NCEA attainment in Canterbury and schools were closed at that stage for at least four weeks and in some cases six to eight weeks. We also had students who were displaced in their homes and there was a lot less online learning and there was ongoing trauma with the shakes, and actually the attainment of NCEA in Canterbury was not affected by that.’’

She confirmed if the Level 4 lockdown was lifted once the fourweek period was up, then some pupils could return to school on April 29 at the earliest. — RNZ