Online exam target unlikely: principal

WELLINGTON: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority has a target of having NCEA exams completed online by 2020.

But a secondary school principal said technical difficulties were not the only hurdle to achieving the 2020 goal.

Some 46,000 pupils sat this week’s level 1 English exams. But for the 3600 pupils doing the digital pilot, things did not all go to plan.

Just over two hours in, a com puter glitch froze the screen for more than 10 minutes before it was cleared.

NZQA said the issue was fixed within 10 minutes, and the exam was extended to make up any time lost.

Kapiti College Principal Tony Kane said the glitch was avoidable.

‘‘This is an utterly known quantity — whoever was administering that part of it knows exactly how many students are going to be online at that time,’’ he said.

‘‘In days where millions and millions of transactions happen everyday, surely 3500 kids on a digital exam is not a big ask.’’

NZQA is investigating digital assessment methods, with the aim of having NCEA examinations available online by 2020.

The aim to go digital by then was optimistic, Mr Williams said.

‘‘Invariably, we need to be in a better place but I don’t know we will ever get to a place with digital devices where they never crash.

‘‘It is implicit in the devices, there are hiccups. . . we need to be able to avoid [them] when we have a mass online exam.’’

Technical difficulties were not the biggest challenge standing in the way, Mr Williams said.

That would be ensuring an equitable learning environment was provided for all pupils, despite New Zealand’s equity issues.

‘‘So giving all students access to devices — not just for an exam, but for their learning.’’

NZQA digital assessment transformation deputy chief executive Andrea Gray acknowledged it was unlikely all exams would be digital by 2020.

‘‘We are seeing that the types of things that we would need . . . may or may not be in wide use . . . but we are able to implement most of the textbased examinations next year and some of the foreign language ones the following year,’’ she said. — RNZ