NCEA credibility at risk: Ministry

High rate of ‘excellence’ grades in internal assessment flagged

The Ministry of Education is questioning the credibility of the senior school assessment system after finding that students are two to three times more likely to get “excellence” grades if they are internally assessed — by their own teachers.

As the last NCEA exam was held yesterday, the Weekend Herald can reveal a ministry paper prepared for a review of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement shows 28 per cent of internally-assessed papers at Level 3 are graded “excellent”, compared with only 11 per cent of those with external exams.

“There are higher proportions of merit and excellence grades awarded in internal assessment than in external assessment, which conveys the impression that internal assessment is easier,” it says. “Along with the decreasing trend in external assessment for NCEA, this is a risk to NCEA’s credibility and robustness.”

The strong language is a reversal of the ministry’s position when the Herald last reported on the gap between internal and external assessment in 2014, when deputy secretary Rowena Phair said the gap reflected NCEA’s “flexibility”.

Since then, the gap in excellence grades between internally and externally assessed papers has widened — from 8 percentage points to 11 points at Level 1, from 11 to 13 points at Level 2 and from 16 to 17 points at Level 3.

Briar Lipson, of the businessbacked NZ Initiative thinktank, said internal assessment created an inevitable conflict of interest for teachers.

“It places a huge professional contradiction on teachers that we just don’t talk about . . .” she said.

“You are charged with doing the best you can for your students. But then you are also charged with being an independent agent of the qualifications authority. The contradiction in that is so obvious.”

The NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA) requires teachers to check a sample of their internal assessments with other teachers of the same subject in the same or another school.

NZQA also checks a random sample of internally assessed papers each year. But Lipson said New Zealand was “a complete outlier internationally” in its reliance on internal assessment. “Most countries, even Finland, have a standardised exam at the end of school,” she said. “The UK has just rolled back from a small reliance on internal assessment.”

Here, external assessment has dropped from 37 per cent of Level 3 papers in 2008 to 24 per cent last year.

Some schools, such as Kia Aroha College in O¯tara, have no external exams at all, although others such as Auckland Grammar School require externals for almost all subjects.

Partly as a result, students achieving NCEA with excellence, by passing enough individual papers with excellence, have roughly trebled — from 7 per cent to 20 per cent at Level 1, and from 5 per cent to 16 per cent at both Levels 2 and 3.

The ministry said: “This raises the question of the levels of credibility for an excellence endorsement. Is an endorsement at Level 1 ‘devalued’ because almost 20 per cent of candidates gain an excellence?”

In May, a ministerial review group proposed moving further towards internal assessment, dropping external exams at Level 1 and requiring a quarter of credits at Levels 2 and 3 to come from “pathway” courses such as a trades, research projects and “community action projects”.

However, review chairman Jeremy Baker told the Weekend Herald dropping external exams did not necessarily mean losing external assessment.

“There are many [ways] you can assess externally. All it means is someone other than the classroom teacher is doing the assessment,” he said.

He said the review group was looking for a balance of assessment methods.

The ministerial review group will hold a “co-design lab” on the future of NCEA with education, business and community groups at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium next Wednesday and Thursday.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins declined to comment before receiving final recommendations next year.

Alice Peacock

Our ancestors may have enjoyed Christmas tipples of just 66ml a glass.

Now, the option to super-size your wine to up to 250ml a glass can be found on the menu of many Auckland bars and restaurants.

The larger pours are reducing queuing time and dishes, but also raising concerns about our knowledge of standard drink sizes.

It’s prompted Alcohol Health Watch to call on pubs and bars to provide consumers with information on the amount of alcohol in each glass.

Customers aren’t likely to know how much alcohol each size option entails, according to AHW director Nicki Jackson.

“One glass of wine could contain anywhere between one to two-plus standard drinks depending on serving size and strength of wine.

“Yet New Zealanders aren’t provided with information of standard drinks in many bars and pubs.”

According to the Health Promotion Agency, a 100ml glass of a 12.5 per cent wine was equivalent to 1 standard drink. Therefore, a 250ml pour equated to 2.5 standard drinks, and exactly a third of a bottle of wine.

In most cases, on bar and restaurant menus, the price of the larger serving option fell just under double the price of the smaller pour, making it similar value-wise for 150ml and 250ml respectively.

A small glass of SOHO Bobby Pinot Noir at Uptown Freehouse in Eden Terrace was $10, and a larger pour $17.

Down the road at Countdown, the whole bottle cost $18.99.

Manager Brenton Dix said the variation was about giving drinkers an option. “We’ve got a lot of media people coming in here, a lot of businesses and they like their wine.”

Larger servings went well on Fridays, he said, whereas he noted more patrons opting for a smaller pour during the week.

If someone seemed to be overdoing it, Dix said a staffer would keep tabs, and make sure they weren’t driving. Very few people questioned how many standard drinks were in a glass, he said.

A similar pattern could be found at Auckland Central bar Vikki Lane, where you could order a 150ml pour of wine or a larger 250ml tipple.

Customer Stacey Hunt, who had

opted for a small rose, said it would be useful for bars to include a guide on how many standard drinks were likely in each pour.

“Particularly if you’re driving, it would be good to know if you should go for a big one or a small one.”

Co-owner David Robinson said the bar had actually scaled back its size varieties — the menu used to offer a 50ml glass allowing people to taste a wine “without getting legless”.

Kim Odendaal, Hospitality New Zealand regional manager, said many venues offered different size pours to provide choice and cater to their patron’s needs.

Larger glasses also allowed the wine to breathe, she pointed out. And venues might prefer larger pours to reduce the amount of glassware needed, or reduce cleaning costs.

Jackson said Ireland last month passed a law to require pubs and bars to give consumers information on the amount of alcohol in each glass sold. “New Zealand needs to follow suit.”

Scientists at the University of Cambridge found last year that the capacity of wine glasses has ballooned nearly seven-fold over the past 300 years, rising most sharply in the last two decades in line with a surge in wine consumption.

Wine glasses have swelled in size from an average capacity of 66ml in the early 1700s.