Power Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Power Simon: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:624;Page:19523] 
7.  
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education 
: Will officials produce an assessment schedule that ensures New Zealand Scholarship students are ranked with marks or grades; if so will students be permitted to see the marks or grades that they are assigned? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Education) 
: 
 Yes and I expect so. 
Simon Power 
: Can the Associate Minister confirm that what the Scholarship Reference Group called for was a return to traditional assessment through marking or grading and does he agree with reference group member Graham Young who said it was nothing more than “spin” for the Minister to claim that these changes could be achieved through standards-based assessment? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The exact terms used by the reference group were a ranking of candidates produced by marks or grades. That recommendation has been accepted in that form by Cabinet. Mr Young is one member of the group. There are many other voices that disagree with his position. I am certainly not responsible for his views. 
Dr Ashraf Choudhary 
: What reports has the Associate Minister received from the teaching profession about Cabinet’s decision to endorse the recommendations of the Scholarship Reference Group? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I heard the president of the Post Primary Teachers Association Debbie Te Whaiti say on the  
Breakfast 
 programme on television this morning: “We think it is a pragmatic solution and that teachers and students will gain certainty from it and be able to work through the scholarship scenario for the remainder of the year confidently. Ranking performance is what teachers have to do when they are marking assessments so I think the idea of determining a system within each subject for ranking is entirely do-able. It’s what teachers are used to doing. They’re used to exercising professional judgment and that’s what the panels will be asked to do. It’s workable. It’s not foreign to teachers or standards-based assessment.” 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Will the Associate Minister guarantee to this House that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority will be able to produce standards-based assessment items in scholarship exams that will clearly define the top 2 to 3 percent of students in each subject area; if he can do that will he also point out to members of this House where the flying pigs might be? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I am sure that the authority working with the examining panels will achieve that target in some subjects—[ 
Interruption 
] If I could finish. Clearly because it is difficult or impossible to guarantee that 100 percent the two interventions that have been recommended by the review group have been agreed to by Cabinet. 
Simon Power 
: Is the Associate Minister aware that members of the Scholarship Reference Group have said that his stubborn desire to stick with standards-based assessment at scholarship level is “bizarre” “absolutely illogical” and “incomprehensible”; and why will he not just admit that no matter what one calls it this year’s exams will use a fundamentally different assessment system from that used at other levels of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement ? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I do not think there is a great deal of productive purpose in making the sorts of comments about individuals that Mr Morris has made in that regard. What I do assure the member about is that the Scholarship Reference Group recommended and Cabinet agreed to the following: firstly that student performance could be assessed in the way that was earlier described; and secondly— 
Simon Power 
: It’s completely different from what was originally intended. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: If the member would listen it might help. Secondly that— 
Madam SPEAKER 
: The Minister will be heard in silence or members will leave the Chamber. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Secondly that inter-subject moderation or scaling be not used. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Standing Order 370(2) requires that a reply to a question must be concise and confined to the subject matter of the question. I listened to Mr Power’s question very carefully. He made no mention at all of Mr Morris yet we got a response from the Minister saying that Mr Morris was wrong because of this. How can that possibly comply with Standing Order 370(2)? 
Madam SPEAKER 
: In ruling on the point of order I say the Minister had not completed his answer. Would the Minister please complete his answer. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The two points I raised which were accepted by Cabinet are not inconsistent with a standards-based approach as can be confirmed by any discussion with all the members of the secondary review group. 
Simon Power 
: Will the Associate Minister pay anything more than lip service to the Post Primary Teachers Association’s demands that the Government “immediately address complex problems with the NCEA including a lack of consistency in exams and inadequate moderation” or does he need another scholarship-type debacle to raise him from his slumber? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: It is exactly to provide the community parents and students with the certainty that they expect and are entitled to that the State Services Commission is conducting the reviews it is currently conducting I say to Mr Power.