Students fuming over having to sit online exam
Students at a South Auckland high school have started a petition against having to sit an exam online — a move which will force some of them to buy new laptops.
A petition against the digital science exam on the website Change.org has already been signed by 75 students at decile-9 Botany Downs Secondary College.
Organiser Chloe Yip says students studying science for Level 1 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) were only told by email last week that they would have to sit a test exam digitally on September 14.
“Before receiving this email, there was absolutely no prior notice,” she says on the website.
Another student told the Herald that the exam would force her to buy a new laptop because her existing laptop needed charging every two hours and the college would not allow chargers in the exam.
Yip says on the petition website that sitting the test digitally will be “a disadvantage to the less privileged students compared to the students who grew up learning how to type and use computers”.
The NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has introduced the digital mid-year Level 1 science test for the first time this year as part of a series of trials aimed at making all NCEA exams available online by 2020.
Deputy chief executive Kristine Kilkelly said the authority was in touch with Botany Downs Secondary College to ensure it had the resources and support it needed for the trial.
“Our young people are living in a global, digitally connected world,” she said.
“NZQA wants to ensure we support our young people to have the skills they will need to succeed as part of a global workforce. Part of this work is our digital trial and pilot examinations”.
She said previous digital tests have replicated traditional paper-based exams, but the new science test “uses videos and animations, which students can control and play as often as needed”.
Kilkelly said NZQA “will evaluate the digital science trial in relation to how effective the features are in supporting the students’ ability to understand and respond to the task”.
Botany Downs Secondary College principal Karen Brinsden said students would be able to sit a paperbased test if they experienced any “challenges” with the digital test.
She said the college had already been involved in digital trials for other subjects, such as maths and media, and had not experienced any problems with students taking a long time to load pages on their laptops.
Asked whether digital exams would disadvantage students with poor typing skills, she said: “Quite possibly, however we are being proactive in preparing our students to ensure they are ready for when NZQA moves to have the majority of subject based assessments online which they hope to do by 2020”.