NCEA reforms under fire: Principals warn of Māori-Pacific student disadvantage

Principals from low-income schools are urgently calling for changes to the NCEA literacy and numeracy requirements due to the disproportionate number of failures among Pacific and Māori students.

Many students from disadvantaged schools struggle with the revamped literacy and numeracy exams, leading educators to blame the test format rather than student ability.

After two rounds of updated assessments last year, over half of the students fail literacy, and nearly three-quarters fail numeracy, particularly in the high-equity index schools.

These changes are a part of the NCEA Change Package, a series of major reforms introduced by the Ministry of Education and NZQA that aims to strengthen the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) system.

But the changes worry many, including principals from low-decile schools who say their students are impacted by socioeconomic barriers that play a part in halting achievement.

Speaking to William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Simon Craggs, Papakura High School Principal, says that the standardised literacy and numeracy assessments (CAAs) have a “limited purpose” for their students.

“We will put students through who we believe are ready,” Craggs says.

“Even when we did that last year, we found that a number of students who we knew were very competent in reading, writing and math and were very confident going into the tests and coming out of the tests actually failed them.”

He says the new co-requisite for NCEA literacy and numeracy allows students to choose between an online exam for reading, writing, and mathematics or an alternative pathway of NCEA achievement standards.

But he says that if students count these towards their literacy and numeracy, they cannot count them towards their NCEA achievement, effectively requiring them to gain 20 more credits.

Watch Simon Craggs full interview below.

Failure to support diverse learners

Craggs says the CAA design often disadvantages students who learn differently, especially those with limited English proficiency, a concern raised by schools serving Pacific communities.

Alwyn Poole, a Charter school advocate, says the low pass rates create “another rift” between Māori and Pasifika learners and their peers.

“It has a huge effect and you can look at it as they have done in this release with regards to socioeconomics or what we call lower decile schools and are now high equity number schools,” Poole says.

“You can also look at it from a Māori and Pasifika perspective. For instance, only 38.1 per cent of Māori passed numeracy, 63 per cent of Europeans passed numeracy.

“So once again, we're creating another rift between what Māori and Pasifika can achieve through our education system and what Europeans will continue to achieve through our system.”

Alwyn Poole. Photo /Website/Substack

Assessment on access needed

Vaughan Couillault, President of the Secondary Principals Association and Papatoetoe High School Principal, says there is a need for a refreshed qualification but urges caution over digital assessment modes.

“What we make of this is it's an unfortunate situation that we find ourselves in, where we have made some systemic systemic changes that could indeed be causing access to the qualification to be a challenge,” Couillault says.

“Normally, your access to the qualification is about your learning and whether you know stuff or not.

“But there's a bit of a hunch in the market at the minute that the access to the qualification is more born of the mode of assessment rather than the amount a student knows.”

Vaughan Couillault. Photo /SPANZ

Change is good, the test isn’t

Craggs stresses that it is not the higher standards that need changing but the test itself.

Following feedback from around 50 principals from high equity index schools, he says, “The feeling was that this test, it's not that we don't think that there's a need for strengthening literacy and numeracy alongside NCEA. We're very much in support of that. The problem is the test.

“It's a poor assessment. It's failing our kids, especially our Māori and Pasifika, who many learn in different ways.

“We really need to look urgently at this aspect of the literacy and numeracy requirements and try to come up with something that's not going to fail a whole generation of students.”

Craggs supports alternative assessments like E-asTTle and encourages collaboration with the Ministry of Education and NZQA to develop a better system that ensures the success of all students.