Ogilvy Bernie: Urgent Debates — National Certificate of Educational Achievement—Scholarship Examination 
Ogilvy Bernie: Urgent Debates — National Certificate of Educational Achievement—Scholarship Examination 
[Volume:623;Page:18480] 
BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to talk a little on this particular matter. The Government has tried to explain this matter away by saying initially at least that it has a new system. But if we have a new system that is not fully built on consultation piloting and testing is it any wonder that today we are talking about issues that are full of mistakes? I ask the question and I am sure many people around the country are asking the same question: who is winning in regard to level 4 and who has lost? The students themselves have not gained. It puts a bad slant over everybody who has sat any of the exams from level 1 through to level 4. Those students who sat level 1 last year must now be wondering what will happen when they get to level 4. I know from press releases that came out yesterday as well as earlier that there is disquiet across the land about this whole subject of secondary education and what it means to children and students who are studying—particularly those who are going on to tertiary education this year be it at a particular university institution polytech private training establishment or whatever else. 
So we do have a question mark. I understand the system is new but does that warrant the fact that we have dug ourselves into such a deep hole? The system should have been piloted it should have been administered a little at a time and had all the bugs taken out of it and therefore something could have been presented to the nation that every student and certainly every classroom teacher headmaster and principal would feel confident about promoting. 
If I had been one of those students who last year sat the Cambridge exams for instance or the International Baccalaureate exams I would be feeling pretty good at this moment. That is not the story that either this Government or anybody in this House wishes to communicate in a negative way. But in reality the students who sat those exams must be thinking: “Wow I’m glad no mess-ups have occurred there. There is a standard. We know what we got. We don’t get much money for it but at least we know what we got in the scholarship sense in the sense of excellent academic performance.” and that I think is probably what this whole thing boils down to. 
I believe that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has failed the top students in our country and certainly the teachers who have put everything into grooming their students for the task of entering into tertiary education in particular. Paul Ferris President of the Secondary Principals Association said that the country trusted the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to develop an exam that would represent the very best of achievement-based assessment and it has not done that. It has let us down. That was yesterday’s comment and here we are in the House reiterating the same thing. 
The Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) does not want to be held responsible because this exam is not its thing; it is not the PPTA’s exam. Then I notice that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority has distanced itself or has not been heard from since this matter has arisen. So when the president of the Secondary Principals Association states those sorts of things I am alarmed. Yvonne Browning from Southland Girls High School said that this whole thing was such a debacle in her mind and asked whether one subject was worth more than another. In reality some of us have been trying to say and I am sure the Government wants this to be said that every subject is on a par for every student and it has attainment built within it. 
I heard the Hon Brian Donnelly speaking out very clearly for a system that will give us some hope and some way through all this. The reason why Yvonne Browning asked that question is that she has read she knows and we all know for instance that nine out of 1000 biology scholarship candidates passed and 300 out of 900 English students got scholarships. That is way out of kilter. If I am looking at it from the point of view of a parent an employer or someone separate from the student that tells me that English or arts subjects are a far better shot in which to achieve a scholarship than for instance biology. I do not believe that is the rational outcome this exam should produce. I do not believe that any previous speakers have come to any other conclusion than what I am saying. This is not a good advertisement of what we call quality education for this nation. 
Ministers need to accept responsibility. The blame game we are into needs to get out of this whole issue. We need to look straight at the fact that we need a policy that gives children parents employers universities of the future and all the other institutions that take on these students some level of comfort that there is to be an education system that we can be proud of and multiply throughout the world. 
 From day one United Future’s policy has been to reward educational excellence and to broaden the eligibility of students to receive monetary rewards for excellent academic performance in their final school year. That should not be a new thing to anybody. It is something that we want to make sure this Government looks at in order to ensure that National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) level 4 is attended to seriously and that everybody is asked to make input into it and not to be at all shy about it. The more input there is at this stage the more that will correct students for 2005 and I believe that will then put back a sense of pride in the fact that we have an education system that goes all the way. The fact is that NCEA level 4 provides for prizes worth up to $45000 apiece. That demands action by this Government.