Teachers to vote on NCEA deferral

Secondary teachers should defer full implementation of Level 2 NCEA until 2004, and Level 3 until 2005 and schools should vote on whether to proceed with a limited and monitored implementation of Level 2 next year and Level 3 in 2004, a paper to PPTA annual conference later this month recommends.

The paper, from PPTA national executive and distributed to schools today, will be debated at the three-day conference in Wellington, starting on Tuesday September 24. It updates a paper already prepared for the conference on the NCEA.

PPTA president Jen McCutcheon said the recommendations in the later paper reflected the need for a phased and monitored implementation of the NCEA in a bid to minimise the kinds of problems experienced with Level 1 this year.

The fluid nature of the NCEA situation and changes in members’ views on it required secondary teachers to use their professional judgment about whether to proceed with NCEA Level 2 next year.

“Some branches and individual members have indicated a desire to trial NCEA Level 2 next year. These conference recommendations let teachers in their subject departments decide whether they are ready to implement NCEA Level 2 on a limited basis or retain Sixth Form Certificate.“

Mrs McCutcheon said a complete ban on Level 2 implementation next year would not work. “A significant group of members have told us they would find it very difficult, or impossible, to adhere to that.”

She said serious implementation problems, described in the earlier NCEA conference paper, remained.

Other recommendations in the paper - to call on the Ministry of Education to commission an ongoing independent review of the NCEA by assessment experts, and to continue to demand adequate resourcing of the NCEA at all levels – emphasized the extent of those problems and the need for solutions.

“Heads of Departments have told the Education Ministry and NZQA there are huge problems with Level 1 which the agencies need to address if the qualification is to have credibility and be manageable for schools and teachers.”

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