Glendowie College joins move to online exams

Glendowie College is one of 35 Auckland secondary schools where some students will sit NCEA exams online for the first time this year, joining 15 other schools that have tried online exams over the past few years.

Principal Richard Dykes said only about 100 of his 800 NCEA students would try the online exams in English, Te Reo Ma¯ori, business studies and media studies.

“In English we are just doing one class. We don’t want to throw our entire year group on to our network at the risk of crashing it,” he said.

The central server used for last year’s Level 1 English exam crashed for 10 minutes two hours into the three-hour exam.

Other schools involved in the online trials have reported problems. Some students have been asked for multiple log-ins to different subjects and some students have mistakenly been given fail grades.

An evaluation said some students found it difficult to work with graphs and equations online, and the NZ Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has abandoned plans to offer maths and science exams online this year. The 14 subjects available online are mainly essaybased.

Dykes said schools faced “conflicting messages”, as NZQA planned to move most exams online but there was no government funding for families to buy devices.

Grant McMillan, principal of decile-1 James Cook High School, said his school had enough devices for all senior students to sit their exams online, but had opted to wait until problems with the online exams were fixed.

“It’s about being a safe follower; we don’t have to be the leading edge on that,” he said.

“It’s very much a trial. I’m happy about what they are doing but we will be probably a year behind.”