Complaints rolling in about difficult NZQA algebra exam
Nearly 200 teachers, students, parents and principals concerned about the difficulty of a year 11 NCEA algebra exam have complained to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
By yesterday the NZQA had received 170 complaints over the MCAT exam sat two weeks ago. It was working to make sure each complaint was responded to directly, and as quickly as possible.
The office of the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata, was not yet able to release information around how many complaints it had received.
Labour MP and education spokesman Chris Hipkins said he had been copied in to email complaints headed for NZQA and the minister, and while he could not say how many he had got, there had been a steady flow.
Wellington Girls’ College maths teacher Margaret Priest said complaints were being made from all over the country, including from the Otago and Auckland Maths Associations. A complaint was also being put together by teachers in Canterbury.
Priest said that despite an encouraging meeting last week, it did not seem an apology from NZQA was likely. ‘‘They need to apologise, this is 20 per cent of their [students] year’s work.’’
The responses she had seen coming back to people who had complained were ‘‘not very satisfactory’’.
A website has been set up by Kapiti College maths teacher Jake Wills to log complaints, and their responses. Wills wanted to see as many complaints as possible published on the site, so students, parents and schools affected knew they were not alone.
He knew of schools from Wellington and Auckland that planned to contact NZQA and the ministry over the exam.
People were getting to the point where they realised nothing had happened in response to the outcry over the exam, and so they needed to complain.
‘‘What I really want is for the NZQA to acknowledge there’s an issue, and put processes in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again.’’
Last week the NZQA admitted the way it communicated changes to the exam through circulars was not adequate.