The Northern Advocate

Changes to NCEA delayed for two years

- Cherie Howie

Changes to NCEA will be delayed two years, Education Minister Erica Stanford says.

The NCEA Change Programme was brought in by the former Labour Government in 2020 to make the main qualificat­ion for Kiwi high school students more accessible, with a simpler structure, stronger l i teracy and numeracy requiremen­ts, and to provide clearer pathways to further education or work.

The reforms also aimed to give equal status to mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and to make NCEA level 1 optional.

However, the coalition Government is making significan­t changes to the programme, which will delay it by two years, Stanford said yesterday.

NCEA level 2 and a revised NCEA level 1 would be in place by 2028, and NCEA level 3 by 2029.

“The current NCEA Change Programme, introduced by the last Government, is fundamenta­lly flawed, in that it designs the assessment­s before writing the curriculum that details what students should be learning.”

Principals and teachers around the country had said the sector wasn’t ready for the roll-out of NCEA Level 1 changes, but the changes went ahead anyway, Stanford said.

As a result, some schools stopped offering Level 1 NCEA at all, she said.

“Therefore, I will be delaying the programme’s start by two years. It’s essential to change the approach, give certainty to teachers, parents and students about the implementa­tion timeline of the NCEA Change Programme and put in place a clear curriculum.

“Teachers have repeatedly called for greater clarity about what to teach. Only 40 per cent of schools reported being ready for the introducti­on of Level 1.”

The delay would allow the Government to develop the secondary curriculum of year 11 to 13 subject areas before introducti­on of new assessment­s, Stanford said.

The following was planned under the new timeline:

The Education Review Office would review the new NCEA Level 1, documentin­g its findings

Additional review of other aspects of the NCEA Change Programme, including the methods for external assessment­s, periods of study leave, and moderation practices

The senior secondary curriculum for year 11 to 13 students would be developed

An implementa­tion plan based on what had been learned from ERO’s evaluation of level 1.

Some people are walking away from the hairdresse­r with a fresh cut in more ways than one.

Figures released to NZME by Accident Compensati­on Corporatio­n under the Official Informatio­n Act (OIA) show there are up to 30 new claims and more than 20 active claims annually from people who have been injured getting their hair done.

ACC searched using the keywords “hairdresse­r, barber and hair salon” in combinatio­n with “cut, clipped, wound, slice, gash, nick, slash, graze, slit, scissor, clipper, stab, and puncture”.

This revealed 155 new claims and 141 active claims since the beginning of 2018.

The total cost to ACC of treatment for hair salon injuries was upward of $28,000.

The release of figures comes weeks after a mother claimed her 2-year-old son had part of his ear cut off during a trip to the barber.

The boy’s mother described it as one of the “most horrific experience­s” and said it required treatment at Starship hospital.

The incident, which Worksafe is looking into, led to the sale of the barber shop.

A breakdown of the recorded injuries showed that, while some people needed medical treatment, there were no fatal claims and no claims considered ‘serious’.

New Zealand emergency physician Dr Gary Payinda had not seen any people cut at the salon in the emergency department and suspected most were seen by GPs.

More common in ED were chemical burns and allergic reactions to hair colourants and straighten­ing treatments, he said.

“We do see people come in with chemical burns and severe reactions to a hair colour or treatment.”

Payinda thought some of the ACC claims could be from laceration­s that became infected and needed follow-up treatment.

Depending on hygiene standards at salons, there could be bacteria on blades that could be transferre­d into accidental cuts.

A second doctor confirmed she had treated patients for clipper laceration­s that had become infected and needed either topical or oral antibiotic­s.

 ?? ?? Erica Stanford
Erica Stanford

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