$69m online learning cash injection

$69 million will be used to help all schools offer online exams by funding network upgrades, ICT and cyber security support, and creating digital identities secondary school students can use to access NCEA Online.

A $49 million expansion of the Te Mana Tūhono programme will offer all state and state-integrated schools the opportunity to upgrade their network hardware by 2024, and will expand the programme to offer cybersecurity support. You can find out more about this on the Te Mana Tūhono webpage.

“This will give schools confidence they can offer their students a safe and secure online environment to take their NCEA exams online,” the government said this week during its announcement. 

An additional investment of $20 million will be made over four years on digital identities for secondary students to enable them to access digital practice exams, sit NCEA exams online and check their NCEA results when they are released.

This will help reduce students’ stress around exam time, reduce the administration schools need to do to manage logons, and ensure the ongoing integrity of digital NCEA exams as more students take online exams.

This will make it easier for students to sit their exams securely online and will reduce the amount of work schools need to do to offer NCEA Online.

Additional school funding was announced this week, targeting post-covid recovery.