The testing questions NCEA needs to resolve
If New Zealand is falling out of love with the school exam system, student stress could be a factor. Jessica Long reports.
Charlotte Weston always wanted to go to university, but everything changed at high school. ‘‘High school was really, really hard for me, and I don’t look back on it fondly at all,’’ she says.
She felt forced to fit into an illfitting mould. She struggled to concentrate. Then, in 2002, New Zealand’s national qualification was given a dramatic shake-up.
‘‘My year was the guinea pig year for the NCEA [National Certificate of Educational Achievement]. There was so much focus on ticking all these boxes that quite a few people got left behind, or had a lot of anxiety . . . I think there was a lot of emphasis on meeting these particular curriculum [requirements] and not so much on learning.’’
Introduced between 2002 and 2004, NCEA combines internal assessments and exams. Its promise is to test skills using credits, and provide students with more opportunities to study their preferred subjects than the old model, School Certificate.
The qualification is said by some to help students prepare for their future – adults without a level 2 equivalent qualification had a 45 per cent higher unemployment rate than those with one, Statistics New Zealand found in 2014.
But Weston remembers the new system adding pressure to an already ‘‘awful’’ experience of being a teenager navigating school with undiagnosed ADHD. She shut down. ‘‘I do remember a lot of my friends being really anxious about it. I don’t think it mobilised me.’’
Teething problems?
In December 2002, a survey of 16 Auckland schools showed overall support for the new system. In 2009, an inquiry by Parliament’s education and science select committee acknowledged the ‘‘upheaval caused by the shift to the NCEA level 1’’ – but still said the system provided a flexible structure designed to adapt to a changing workforce.
Today, concerns are still being raised, more than a decade after the ‘‘teething problem’’ years.
In May this year, the Post Primary Teachers’ Association
said NCEA was too focused on passing exams, instead of workload and career paths. President Jack Boyle said New Zealand students had the highest rates of anxiety and stress around assessment of any country in the OECD.
In April, rector David Bovey said Palmerston North Boys’ High School proposed not to offer enough credits for students to get NCEA level 1 from 2019, given that level 2 was realistically the minimum qualification for school leavers, and level 1 was of ‘‘questionable’’ value.
Bovey was far from the first school leader to propose a shakeup, but he directly pointed to the ‘‘continuous grind’’ of assessments and a decline in in the mental health of students over the past decade.
‘‘While not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of NCEA – this time period also marks the advent of the smartphone and social media – there is little doubt that it is a noteworthy contributing factor and one of the reasons for the national NCEA review,’’ he said at the time.
‘‘Credit-farming’’ claims
The Government is to review the NCEA process after a ministerial advisory group recommended that level 1 be overhauled. Under the proposal, the number of credits would be halved, and external exams scrapped. Instead, students would pick a project for the year, and concentrate on improving literacy and numeracy.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins says stress was one of the reasons behind the controversial review, though he emphasises it will also look to remove ‘‘credit-farming’’ and create better vocational pathways.
‘‘I have heard many stories of rising stress levels, both by students and principals. Overassessment, and the impact on students’ and teachers’ wellbeing, is one of the major concerns raised by my youth advisory group.
‘‘Unnecessary overassessment at NCEA level 1 and the downside that creates both in added stress for students and extra workload for teachers is one of several aspects the review will consider.’’
‘‘We’re just teenagers’’
Palmerston North Boys’ High School head prefect Digby Werth muller says he and some classmates felt ‘‘worn out’’ before even reaching level 2; now he’s had to ‘‘scrounge for the motivation’’ to complete his final year.
On a good week, the year 13
student spends at least an hour each night working, but last week three upcoming internal assessments swallowed three hours each night. With extracurricular activities, prefect duties, chores, dinner and sleep, there’s not a lot of time left for anything else, he says. ‘‘I was flat out trying to get them finished. It all adds up. You have to remember, we’re just teenagers.’’
Scrapping NCEA altogether would be a ‘‘risky move’’, he says. ‘‘I don’t think there’s a need to cut all of NCEA. I think it’s a good programme . . . but it does have its flaws.’’
Level 1 is outdated, and less pressure early on would give students the motivation to push harder in the years that really count, he says. ‘‘My recommendation would be not to put so much emphasis on level 1. Focus on levels 2 and 3.’’
Too much stress?
The extent of young people’s mental health is largely unknown because of a lack of specific data, though in 2017 the Ministry of Health recorded 49,109 people under the age of 19 visiting mental health and addiction services.
One thing we do know is that New Zealand’s suicide rate is among the highest in the world – between the ages of 15 and 19, the rate is five times that of the United Kingdom and twice that of the United States.
It’s too simple to lay the blame for this at the door of exams. But Victoria University psychology professor Marc Wilson believes there is an increase in the number of teachers, parents, guidance counsellors and principals raising concerns about student stress, and ‘‘many of those people identify NCEA as one of the catalysts’’.
He knows of students who email teachers as late as 2am with questions, while both they and their parents report feeling overassessed. As students move through years 11, 12 and 13, reported stress ramps up.
‘‘We also see increasing amounts of anxiety, increasing amounts of depression, an increasing amount of things like perfectionism as well.’’
Mental health support
Wilson says there is not enough support in schools to cope with young people’s mental health needs. Some are trying to ‘‘hold young people steady’’ until they are serious enough to warrant a referral. ‘‘Schools are really feeling the crunch.’’
Hipkins acknowledges this is an ongoing concern. ‘‘During the two education summits we ran in May, wellbeing of students was the No 1 aspect that attendees wanted to be built into a future school system.’’
Werthmuller thinks there is enough support in his school for students who needed it – but finding the time to use those resources is another story.
For Weston, it was years after school that she finally got the support she needed. She suffered what she calls a breakdown while studying anthropology at Victoria, and was finally diagnosed with ADHD in 2017.
With proper support and medication, she graduated in May, and has decided to return to study architecture.
But her high school wasn’t good with ‘‘complex people’’, she says. ‘‘I was just told to try harder and fit into this very narrow idea of what a student and a teenager should be.’’
Her advice to those running the system now? ‘‘Just recognising that, although for teenagers there’s a lot of hormonal stuff, it’s not always that teenagers [are] just being bad, or being hormonal, or being difficult. Actually there are other things going on.’’