NCEA Mitigations The Boost Students Need

Secondary teachers welcome today’s announcement by the Government that the ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19 is being recognised, and mitigations put in place.

“Hundreds of thousands of rangatahi have had their most critical years at high school severely disrupted because of COVID and through no fault of their own. These credits are the boost they need to ensure they can get on to the tertiary pathway of their choice or move to where they deserve to be in secondary school. It is the fair and right thing to do and we commend the government for it,” says Melanie Webber, President of PPTA Te Wehengarua.

“The learning recognition credits will also be a significant relief to teachers who for the last three years have worked incredibly hard, going above and beyond, to help their ākonga get to where they need to be with NCEA.”

“COVID continues to wreak havoc on school routines and life. While these changes for 2022 are appreciated, there are still concerns about what happens next year as teachers are required to gear up for the implementation of the new curriculum as well as new NCEA standards whilst working to catch up students who have had three years of disrupted learning.

“As well as trying to support students to make sure they have the learning they need, many teachers have also been heavily involved in working on major changes to the NCEA, which will begin rolling out fully from 2024. We appreciate the Government’s acknowledgement of the importance of taking the time to get the NCEA and NZ Curriculum changes right rather than doing it in a hurry and getting it wrong. Many teachers are putting a huge amount of time into these changes, for example developing new NCEA standards, creating new assessment criteria, etc, but the impact on their workloads is excruciating and unsustainable.”

The issues around the NCEA and NZ Curriculum changes will be discussed and debated through consideration of a paper to PPTA Te Wehengarua Annual Conference in October.

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