English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers Questions to Members 
[Volume:634;Page:5338] 
8.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: What proportion of school-leavers leave school without achieving level 1 NCEA? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Minister of Education) 
: 
 Under the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) students leave school with a record of learning which shows how many credits they have attained. The introduction of NCEA has meant that for the first time in 20 years we are seeing a significant drop in the proportion of students leaving school with no or very low qualifications and an increase in the standards that students are achieving. In 2005 73 percent of school-leavers achieved level 1 NCEA or above. This is a vastly better system than was School Certificate which divided students fifty-fifty between those who passed and those who failed. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Since about 11 o’clock this morning the Minister has known what the question would be because it was printed on the question sheet. The question was quite direct and short and it asked him what proportion of school-leavers leave school without achieving level 1 NCEA. I know that that information is publicly available and easily understood but the Minister did not address the question at all. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I noticed that the member leant across to talk to members so he may have missed the part where I said that in 2005 73 percent of school-leavers achieved level 1 NCEA. I think he can do the calculation between that figure and 100 percent. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that the proportion of students leaving school with no qualification was 20.7 percent in 2004 and that in 2005 the proportion of those who left school without level 1 NCEA rose to 27.3 percent? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The member continues I think to confuse how NCEA actually works. What students get is a record of learning that tells us how many credits they have achieved. Thirteen percent of students leave school with few or no qualifications that are going to do them any good at all. But the rest of them who do have a record of learning can make use of that record to either progress on to level 2 or 3 or perhaps leave school and start at say the local bakery on some kind of industry-related qualification making use of what they have achieved and as demonstrated in their record of learning. That is how the system works. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: What advantages does the NCEA have over the previous pass/fail School Certificate system? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: NCEA sets clear standards recognises excellence and delivers meaningful information to parents and employers. Under NCEA students accumulate credits that build towards formal qualifications over a number of years. A major advantage of NCEA is that those who leave with partial attainment can still use their credits to build towards a qualification. In 2004 nearly 80 percent of students in this cohort did just that putting their credits towards apprenticeships and polytechnic courses. The latest figures show that students are attaining higher levels of achievement under NCEA that far more students are leaving school with a university entrance qualification that more students are staying in school until year 13 and that 67 percent of school-leavers are achieving beyond level 1. 
Dr Pita Sharples 
: How does he account for the fact that the social report announced that in 2004 only 47 percent of Maori school-leavers left school with qualifications higher than NCEA level 1 while 74 percent of European and 87 percent of Asian students left school with qualifications higher than NCEA level 1 and have Maori ever been asked how this degree of disparity will be addressed; if not why not? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The answer to the last question is that yes Maori have been frequently asked to give ideas as to how this might be addressed. For example the Hui Taumata that will take place in October will bring together to Taupo virtually every educator involved in Maori education to discuss that very issue. I can give the member some encouragement by saying that there have been big improvements amongst Maori and Pacific students. For example in 2002 the first year of NCEA 35 percent of Maori students left school in year 11. That figure is now 23 percent. In other words we are beginning to see in terms of retention and achievement improvements as demonstrated by NCEA. 
Judy Turner 
: What is the Minister doing given that boys constitute only 41 percent of NCEA level 2 and 3 passes to specifically address the educational need for boys and encourage them to stay and be successful at school? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The research shows that the major problem for boys tends to be in the area of creative reading and creative writing. As they do less well in those two areas of work that tends to spread across their other subject areas. So we know that if we focus on literacy—which is what we are doing spreading around $52 million now in that area—we can begin to lift boys’ performance and the evidence so far is that that is exactly what is happening. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why did the Ministry of Education put out a press statement on 1 September stating that the overall picture for school-leavers is positive when the number of students leaving schools with no qualification rose by almost 30 percent between 2004 and 2005? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I would have to go back and check those figures because once again I am not sure whether the member is comparing apples with apples. His comparison usually is around some kind of equivalence between NCEA and School Certificate and I want to point to the ways those errors can easily be stated. For example the member in his press release says that 2200 school leavers in Wellington left with “just level 1 NCEA or less”. In fact the number in the Wellington City area was 628 so members can see how easily those numbers can be confused. 
Hon Bill English 
: Why did the ministry put out a press release with the heading: “More students leave school with higher qualifications” and leave out the rather startling information that more students are now leaving school with no qualifications—and significantly more between 2004 and 2005? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Because more students are leaving school with qualifications! Once again I will take an illustration of one of the things the member is doing all the time. He is forgetting that in NCEA students accumulate credits. So for example one of the things the member likes to use is literacy and he uses a snapshot of 2004 or 2005 forgetting of course that students from those years stay in the system and achieve at a higher level of literacy later on. So very few students now are leaving school with literacy issues. The percentage is down to about 12 percent now which is a major improvement. In other words the member needs to use the system rather than try to compare it all the time with a non-existent system—namely School Certificate. 
Hon Bill English 
: Is the Minister concerned at all that the number of students leaving decile 1 to 3 schools with no qualifications has risen between 2004 and 2005 from 33 percent of all school-leavers to 43 percent; and why does he just carry on as if these numbers mean nothing? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I am very pleased that we are now seeing in lower-decile schools and particularly amongst students who traditionally did not achieve students who are establishing a record of learning. I can pick two local schools Wainuiomata High School and Porirua College that traditionally were not schools with a high academic record. Both schools now report vastly improved performance. At Porirua College for example students have moved on to achieve scholarships in a way they never did in the past. That is where I come back to the member. He wants all the time to superimpose a norm-referenced system over a standards-based system and try to make an unfair comparison between the two. He needs to agree to the notion that NCEA provides for students who formerly had no record of learning at all—because School Certificate did not provide that. Those students now have it and now can use it as a basis for further learning.