An open letter to the Minister of Education

Bali Haque is a former deputy Chief Executive of NZQA, President of the Secondary Principals Association of New Zealand (SPANZ), Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) Executive member, Chair of the independent taskforce to review Tomorrows Schools, and principal of four different secondary schools.

Kia ora Minister,

Your proposals to abandon our national qualification and replace it with what you claim is a better one, together with your expressed intention to rewrite the senior school curriculum have left me rather puzzled. Please can you help me out?

I have many questions, but here are a few for your consideration as you think about your next steps:

1. You have suggested that NCEA is failing our students but here’s the thing: NCEA is internationally recognised and many students with NCEA are welcomed by universities around the world, including the most prestigious ones. Our NCEA graduates overwhelmingly also do well in our own tertiary institutions and workplaces. So, if NCEA is failing our students, how is this manifesting itself in terms of outcomes? How bad is it? How about the very real positives? Do you actually have any hard empirical national data to justify an outright axing?

2. I know you are worried about students who leave school without sufficient literacy and numeracy skills? So am I. We all know that literacy and numeracy need to be addressed in the early years of schooling. Would it not make more sense to focus on dismantling the social, economic, cultural and learning barriers that disadvantage these underserved students when they first enter primary schools?

3. Minister, I know you want to make changes at pace, but is it possible you are being reckless? I am not convinced you really comprehend the tsunami of work you are about to unleash on the sector, or the complexity of implementation. Rest assured, implementation, on your timelines, will be a nightmare. Might it have been prudent and more effective to make changes to NCEA to address its current deficiencies?

4. It is a truism that assessment should be developed alongside the curriculum. I see you are keen on introducing a ‘knowledge rich’ curriculum. A list of subjects, some with quite fancy names, many of which already exist in schools is not really a new national curriculum. Despite this you seem to be in the process of determining how this, as yet largely absent curriculum, will be assessed! Would you not agree that curriculum and assessment development should be integrated very carefully?

5. Minister, you have intentionally narrowed the curriculum by insisting that students must study five subjects, each taking a whole year to ‘master’. Why is a year- long course somehow the gold standard? Successful semester and short courses are currently common in universities, other tertiary providers, and many schools. Are you suggesting that deep, knowledge rich learning must take an entire year, no matter what?

6. You have proposed that students must ‘pass’ four out their five subjects to gain a certificate. We can also expect more examinations . I’m wondering what will happen to a student who passes three subjects and just misses out on the fourth because they have failed an external examination. Will they have to wait a year to repeat the exam before they can be awarded the certificate?

7. You have argued that one problem with NCEA is that it allows students to mix vocational (you have called them ‘easy ‘credits ) and ‘academic’ subjects. However, in your proposal, both vocational subjects and school-based curriculum subjects will still count towards gaining a certificate. Minister, having abandoned the NCEA, have you actually addressed the ‘problem’ you identified?

8. You have produced a list of vocational subjects, each of which must be delivered for a full year, probably through an industry provider. Have you considered how small rural schools and poorer schools will be able to offer these resource-heavy vocational subjects?

9. This is not an easy one to crack, but on a purely practical note: have you worked out how schools will manage their timetables to allow students to do both year-long school-based subjects on campus, and year-long industry -based vocational subjects, often off campus?

10. You have suggested that all internally assessed curriculum-based work will be marked by NZQA. Maybe this is because you don’t trust teachers to act professionally and you are unwilling to resource them to do their jobs? You have suggested AI might be used. Are you sure about that? Even if we assume the improbable, the use of AI will certainly not provide credible results unless the tasks or assessments that all students complete across the nation have to do are the same or very similar. This enforced standardisation of task will inevitably lead to a serious further narrowing of the senior school curriculum. As we try to develop a modern 21^st century education system, is this wise Minister?

11. Minister, your own cabinet paper predicts an ‘initial’ decline in achievement rates, particularly for our most at risk and vulnerable learners if your proposals are implemented. What do you suggest teachers and principals tell these students and their parents? Are they just collateral damage? There is a much bigger issue here: can you tell me why you think this will only be a short term decline? What evidence do you have to support such an assertion, or are you just hoping?

I am sure you get my drift here, Minister. Experience tells me that you and your advisors have manufactured a major crisis where one does not really exist. Of course there are issues to address, as with any national qualifications system, but they would have been far better addressed through implementing an incremental, careful improvement plan.

As it is, your proposed solution throws out baby, bathwater and all the plumbing.

I would like to compliment you on your heroic ability to create a crisis and ‘solve’ it for us – well done.

This letter was republished with permission from the Aotearoa Educators’ Collective substack. Read the original here.