Coddington Deborah: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Coddington Deborah: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:606;Page:3429] 
7.  
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What evidence is there to support the claim by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority that the NCEA is designed to ensure “valid consistent accurate fair assessment at the national standard”? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 There is a lot of evidence in the process and the results. For example in the external assessment the markers are experienced teachers trained by a chief examiner. A sample of 8 percent of every marker’s work is checked by a panel leader. The panel leader’s work is also checked. If any marker’s work is found to be unsatisfactory he or she is replaced and the scripts that he or she has marked are redone. The big difference is that we are not afraid of scrutiny of our marking system. I think that one of the key and most obvious points is that under this system people have stayed with standards and that has meant there has been a broad range of results from subject to subject. Those standards are high and we are insisting that they are met unlike the previous School Certificate system in which if too many people failed some were bumped up for a pass. 
Deborah Coddington 
: How does he reconcile his answer with the facts that in maths for example there were twice as many excellences for internal assessment compared with external exams and half as many failures; and does that not raise serious questions about schools giving inflated internal grades? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Not at all. I think the member as she gets better briefed will understand that what schools do quite regularly is that if students can clearly not reach the standard the entries are withdrawn. That results in a higher achievement rate percentage for people who finish an internal assessment compared with an examination. That is not an option once a student has already sat the examination.  
Hon Richard Prebble 
: No it’s completely wrong right now. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: That is not right. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Noting that the NCEA’s cost to parents has been doubled by the Government to $150 that the taxpayer is now contributing $300 per candidate that it is costing schools at least $50 per candidate and that that quantified portion now makes up in excess of $500 per candidate can the Minister not see that the bureaucracy and costs of the NCEA are out of control and that there is an urgent need for a review to reduce those administration costs in order to get a qualification that is effective without costing that sort of amount? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: One of the major problems I faced on becoming Minister was a system that had had a lot of work done on it especially by Wyatt Creech. Dr Lockwood Smith in fact started the standards-based approach. It was a system that was logical and coherent. The problem was that when Nick Smith was the Minister of Education the Budget did not put in one extra cent of resources. 
Jill Pettis 
: What evidence is there that overall the marking of external assessment against national standards was accurate under the NCEA last year? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The New Zealand Qualifications Authority advises me that of the 800 NCEA exam markers all except two were consistently marking to the national standard. That means that the vast majority 99.8 percent of exam marking was satisfactory the first time. The work of the two markers found to be inconsistent was totally redone prior to the scripts being released. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Where is the fairness and consistency between subjects when only 0.3 percent of students who sat biology achieved excellence compared with 35 percent who sat information management which is basically filing and does that not raise serious questions about the integrity of his “anonymous moderators”? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Not at all. What it shows is that students understood and met the standards in one area and did not in the other. I do not take the ACT approach of dropping standards in order to get top-up averages. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Minister was asked a question. He then made up our policy and talked about it. He has made a mockery of the whole of question time. He tried to say to us that fewer people passed external examinations because the poor students were not allowed to sit them. We all know that cannot be right. This Minister should give logical answers. When he cannot do so he just makes them up. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member was not strictly correct on one of the points that he made. However he was correct in asserting that the last sentence of the Minister’s answer was unnecessary in relation to the question concerned. 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It occurred to me earlier when I came down to the House to make this point of order but I really wish to bring this matter to your attention. Before coming to the Chamber I watched question time on Sky television and I observed an answer given by the Hon Margaret Wilson. I put it to you Mr Speaker that Ministers’ answers such as that may generate levity here because we think Ministers are making fools of themselves but that the reputation of this House when people see on the television screen Ministers giving answers like that and Opposition members’ objections being dismissed becomes seriously damaged. I ask you to raise the issue with the Standing Orders Committee which you chair with a view to tightening up on the Standing Orders in that respect. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That has nothing to do with this particular question. The member came down to the House and did not raise the matter then. There is some point in what the member has said but that is why we have elections. When members make the wrong decisions the people watching that on television can vote differently at subsequent elections. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I suggest that that last point of order should have been ruled out for one simple reason. I have noticed an increasing tendency for such points of order to be raised well after the event they refer to. It used to be a very clear ruling in this House that points of order had to be raised at the time the event occurred. If they are raised later they are no longer relevant. That point of order related to an answer that was given substantially earlier in question time. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: My colleague’s objection was triggered by his observance of Margaret Wilson’s answer and the answer given by Mr Mallard just now. The relevant point I wish to raise is that if we are to wait for the 2005 election or whenever the Government throws in the towel then we will not correct this impediment to the public disclosure of public information in the way that this House conducts question time. I say again with no reflection on you that I have never seen in Western democracies those kinds of answers being given in the way that they are acceptable in this House. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As far as I am concerned a point of order should be raised when the event occurs. Had the member raised the point solely about the particular question that was being asked that would have been a point of order and in order. However I think that our question time compares very favourably with most others I have observed in the Western World. In fact our question time is far more orderly and more information is given than elsewhere. I also think that certainly applies to those people who ask questions and who take a lot of time to think out good and serious questions and are able to ask them. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Standing Order 372 states that Ministers’ answers must be concise and confined to the subject of the question. We have had two answers from Mr Mallard the first to my question about the costs of the NCEA and the second to a question asked by my ACT colleague in respect of the standards of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. In both instances all we got from the Minister was a barrage at me about something that occurred in 1999 and something equally irrelevant for the ACT party. That is why this House rightly asked you as Speaker to ensure the Minister concerned answers the questions. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is why rightly as I have now judged thanks to the member I ruled that the Minister was wrong. 
Metiria Turei 
: Given Labour’s education policy which begins: “Quality education is a basic right. It must be available to all children without regard to wealth or income” how does the Minister justify charging any fees at all for NCEA assessment or does he not consider assessment to be part of a child’s basic right to a quality education? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: Of course a lot of assessment is part of a right. The House will be interested to know that last year the applications for relief as far as fees were concerned were a very small proportion of the amount that this Government had set aside for it. We will do a better job this year of making it clear that that facility is available.