Business Roundtable undermines NCEA

27 March 2007

Media Release:

Business Roundtable undermines NCEA and public education

QPEC has been astonished at the media prominence given to attacks on NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) by a small number of school principals closely connected to the Business Roundtable.

There are legitimate concerns with NCEA which groups such as QPEC have highlighted for several years but these principals, John Morris from Auckland Grammar, Byron Bentley from Macleans College and Roger Moses from Wellington College have been given celebrity media coverage for their preference for "gatekeeper" exams which are more beneficial to students from high income families such as those whose children attend their schools.

But besides being principals of decile 10 secondary schools each of they are also members of the Business Roundtable's education sub committee, the Education Forum. Bentley chairs the Forum with Moses as Deputy Chair. They sit with Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr and representatives of the private education lobbies to promote the policies of the Forum's big business backers.

For example the Forum has called for student fees to attend our universities and polytechs to be dramatically increased and for increased government subsidies to private schools. These are policies to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

QPEC has long been critical of aspects of the NCEA but it is a big step forward from the predetermined failure of 50% of our kids every year through the likes of school certificate.

NCEA is our only national qualification and failure to get it right is not an option.

It would be refreshing to see the media backers of the Business Roundtable provide some balance to the NCEA debate aside from regurgitating ad nauseum the ideological views of those such as John Morris who has said he would stick with alternative exams even if the problems with NCEA were fixed.

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