Donnelly Brian: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations  and State Enterprises — In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21317] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to focus my attention upon the same agency. There are some genuine difficulties with this particular agency. As the report on the 2003-04 financial review notes during that period of time the New Zealand Qualifications Authority faced the challenge of simultaneously trying to introduce both level 3 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and the scholarship examinations. When the review was carried out in February this year we were right in the middle of the scholarship debacle. That exposed also some serious flaws in NCEA level 1 level 2 and level 3 particularly with regard to the variability of results. It has to be said that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority simply did not rise to the challenge it faced in the financial year under review. What is even more serious is that we do not believe it has faced up to the real problems that created the debacle at the end of last year and the beginning of this year and we believe and predict that as a result of it not being prepared to face up to the issues another debacle will occur at the end of this year. 
The real problem is the fact that the agency has focused absolutely on standards-based assessment and has not recognised the limitations of that assessment. For example something like 300 out of 900 students who sat the English scholarship examinations got a scholarship but only nine out of 1000 biology students got a scholarship. The authority tried to argue that that is because there was variability amongst the students. It is absolute bunkum to say that 33 percent of the students studying English were able to meet certain standards and only 0.9 percent of those studying biology were able to meet the standards. That raises some very very serious questions about the whole underlying premise upon which the authority set the examinations. That is its task: to set the assessment tasks. 
I have to say that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has appeared before the Education and Science Committee and been reviewed more often than any other agency and with very good cause. Phil Smith who is the immediate past-president of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers Association made a very telling statement. He said: “If only NZQA had applied the same level of quality assurance to its own processes as it insisted that schools apply to their processes then we would not be in the difficulties we are.” 
I say to the Minister of Education that one of the things that has come through—and as I think the Minister knows I am not somebody who goes out and tries to attack people; I try to get to the root of a problem—is that this is the most untidy organisation I have ever come across. The information that is received from it by the select committee is time and time again purely and simply inadequately prepared. It has not been considered and researched. We saw flow charts for example that had examiners being trained before they had actually been appointed chronologically. When we pointed this out to the people from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority they said: “Oh we got that one wrong.” It has been a continual litany of errors from this particular agency. 
We have the sequence of events that led to the announcement of the Level 3 Distinction Award which is all reported in the review report. The issue is that on 17 January this agency reported the variability of the results to the Minister by email. It did not red-flag it. OK that might have been a mistake—it is certainly untidy at least. But almost 1 month later the chief executive officer could not explain why it was not red-flagged. A month after that error which had caused the Ministers considerable embarrassment the chief executive officer still could not explain why that matter had not been red-flagged. That suggests to me that there are some systemic problems within this organisation. 
Explanations have been given for the variation in results. These are I have to say absolute and utter bunkum. They do not make any educational or scientific sense. Yet the public the Minister and we in Parliament are expected to accept that these are the rationales and that these are the proper processes. I say to the Minister that he has to take responsibility for this agency. He did not set it up. In fact this Government did not set it up or create its culture; that was done by the previous National Government. But this Government has been administering the agency for 5 years and should have fixed it before now.