Foster-Bell Paul: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 08 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9428. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]10.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National) to the Minister of Education: What reports has she received on NCEA level 2 results for 2015?Hon HEKIA PARATA (Minister of Education): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Provisional National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) data shows that student achievement is continuing to rise. The provisional role-based data shows level 1 level 2 and level 3 NCEA achievement rates of schools rose by between 0.4 and 1.8 percentage points last year to 73.2 percent 75.8 percent and 62 percent respectively. Over the same period the proportion of year 13 students gaining university entrance—Hon Trevor Mallard: They can’t read and write. Why can’t they read and write?Hon HEKIA PARATA: It is so good is it not that the Opposition is celebrating the rise in achievement of New Zealand students because so many more kids are doing so.Paul Foster-Bell: What action has led to these positive results for young New Zealanders?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Since we took office at the end of 2008 level 2 achievement rates in school have risen by 15 percent. This rise reflects our Government’s focus on ensuring that all students get the opportunity to succeed. We are driving achievement through our unrelenting focus on lifting achievement for all students working with schools and parents raising the quality of teaching and learning and identifying and targeting those students at risk. We are doing this both by expecting more from the system and by additional targeted investment in those students most at risk of not achieving.Chris Hipkins: Why should parents and employers have confidence that improved rates of qualification attainment are actually a sign of improving educational achievement when a recent Tertiary Education Commission study found that up to half the students meeting NCEA literacy and numeracy requirements are not functionally literate or numerate?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Because although that report was published recently in December the study was undertaken in 2012. In 2012 the literacy and numeracy credits were both strengthened and raised in numbers. Moreover this Government introduced national standards recognising that literacy and numeracy are an important part of learning and that we needed to start earlier in the system than at NCEA. So at all levels we have been strengthening literacy and numeracy.Chris Hipkins: Was Avondale College principal Brent Lewis wrong this week when he stated that students can meet NCEA literacy requirements from only doing physical education or other subjects in which teachers had little experience assessing literacy and numeracy and that tightening minimum requirements would make it much harder to achieve the Government’s goal of 85 percent of 18-year-olds achieving NCEA level 2?Grant Robertson: What would he know?Hon HEKIA PARATA: Exactly. Because the New Zealand Qualifications Authority carries out a moderation of 100000 standards every year and I give a lot of respect to the work that it does. Moreover as it happens you are required to be literate in a range of subjects and not simply English. So you may understand that in other countries you can be literate in French and in Japanese; it does not happen just in English. It is important that kids learn literacy around all subjects and the national qualifications framework makes that possible. The assessment is done by moderators approved and accredited by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority and the Auditor-General in 2014 backed those processes.