Bill English MP
National Party Education Spokesman

26 March 2006

Confidence rattled in scholarship - yet again

National Party Education spokesman Bill English says the latest complaints about this year’s scholarship exams show Labour’s complacency is ill founded.

“No doubt there’s been an improvement on last year, but these latest results show that the Government’s complacency isn’t justified. Some of our brightest achievers still aren’t getting a fair deal.”

Mr English is referring to the two most recent cases revealed in the past two weeks.

Today it has been revealed that eight students who achieved full marks visual arts weren’t given outstanding scholarships when, in every other subject, those who achieved full marks did.

“Students can’t be asked to do any better,” notes Mr English.

And last week it was revealed that the calculus exam was so badly set that half the students got less than 5% and students who got as little as 18% gained scholarships.

Mr English says these problems are in addition to NZQA’s earlier admissions about the difficulties of getting sensible results in a number of subject areas.

“NZQA and the Minister are very definitely running the risk that people will stop believing them when they say all is well,” says Mr English

ENDS

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