Ministry of Education responds positively to SSC review of 2004 Scholarship
The Ministry of Education accepts the findings of the State Service Commission’s (SSC) review of the 2004 Scholarship.
Secretary for Education Howard Fancy accepts that if a stock-take of policy settings and their implications had been
built into the process before moving to implementation the problems that occurred with Scholarship could have been
avoided.
“The SSC report is constructive and the Ministry is committed to improving processes and systems around the Scholarship
exam so that it delivers credible and fair results to students.
“The 2004 Scholarship was pitched at a higher level than previous scholarships that were awarded to top Bursary
students. With the benefit of hindsight the Ministry should have communicated more clearly how different the new exams
were from previous versions of Scholarship.
“The Ministry acknowledges teachers should have been provided with more Scholarship focused professional development. I
accept the report’s finding that many teachers did not feel adequately supported.
“The Government has already made and announced a number of decisions relating to Scholarship in 2005 including that
Scholarship should be awarded to a set percentage of students in every subject. The Standards are being reviewed and
marking schedules devised to allow for a finer grain of discrimination of student performance.
“The Ministry and NZQA are currently working together to implement the recommendations of the Scholarship Reference
Group. This is being done with the close involvement of representatives of secondary sector and school qualifications
stakeholders,” said Howard Fancy.