Glitch in online NCEA slammed
The secondary school teachers’ union has slammed the New Zealand Qualifications Authority over recent issues with exam software disrupting students’ assessments, calling for an urgent meeting over the “unacceptable” problems.
Students sitting exams yesterday morning faced massive disruptions with the NZQA’s online systems buckling under pressure.
More than 20,000 Year 11 students around the country were expected to log into their digital exam for NCEA Level 1 English yesterday morning but the computer system began to slow as they logged in.
Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) acting president Chris Abercrombie said: “Running exams is NZQA’s core business and the issues ... experienced by students around the motu [country] are unacceptable.”
He said the union was “far from feeling reassured” NZQA would solve the software problems despite its advisory group earlier saying its systems could cope.
Abercrombie said yesterday’s exam’s issues weren’t new, pointing to log-in difficulties in numeracy and literacy assessments last week, as well as issues saving and clicking between answers.
“Today with the NCEA Level 1 English external assessment, the issues we have heard about so far include: Students having logged in in plenty of time getting booted out; students getting booted out and losing planning they started for their essays; and not being able to log in at all.
“Hearing NZQA has responded that issues are due to ‘unprecedented demand’, or the technology vendor not meeting expectations is simply not good enough.”
He said it was “incomprehensible” NZQA wasn’t aware or prepared for the impact so many students logging in at once would have on its software given students had been enrolled in these assessments months before.
“Student numbers [are] due to increase exponentially next year with the new Level 1 standards. Students deserve better — as do teachers who have done all they can to help students prepare for the exam.”
Vaughan Couillault, president of the Secondary Principals’ Association of New Zealand (SPANZ), meanwhile, told the Weekend Herald the problems were “less than ideal” but said NZQA’s exam centre managers had discretion to allow students more time when problems like this arise.
NZQA deputy chief executive of assessment Jann Marshall said: “Extensive testing by our technology vendor gave NZQA confidence that this level of activity could be supported.
“The system began to slow after more than 18,000 students had logged in, and a decision was made to stop further logins to guarantee the experience of these students.”
Students who were stopped from logging in were given paper copies of the exam to fill out, Marshall said.