NCEA

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Improvements to NCEA – information for students and parents
**How NCEA works** NCEA stands for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement. It is New Zealand’s national secondary school qualification. NCEA was introduced in 2002 and replaced School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate, and Bursary. It allows students to study for three levels of certificate – usually in years 11 to 13 (previously known as fifth, sixth and seventh form). NCEA is a standards-based qualification. This means that standards of performance have been established for all work done by students that needs to be assessed or tested. Generally, a traditional school subject (English for example) is divided into 5 to 7 standards, representing particular topics, skills or pieces of knowledge. These standards were developed after extensive consultation with teachers, and are linked to areas of learning identified in the New Zealand Curriculum. Students may be tested in several ways: they may sit an examination that covers a set of standards, they may be assessed internally in a series of tests covering individual standards, or, they may be tested using a combination of these approaches. This means that students, parents, and employers know what parts of a subject have been passed – and students don’t just get a single mark for an entire subject. There are two types of standards – unit standards and achievement standards. Unit standards are tested at school by teachers – this is called internal assessment and students either reach the required standard of performance and achieve the standard (and get an achieved grade in their results), or they do not achieve the required standard and get **not achieved**. Achievement standards are either tested by teachers at schools or at the end of year in national exams. Commonly, students will be tested using both these methods. For achievement standards, students will get a **not achieved** grade if they do not meet the standard, but if they pass they can get achieved (for a satisfactory performance), merit (for very good performance) or excellence (for outstanding performance), depending on how well they answer. Standards are worth a set number of credits – generally between 2 and 5 credits. To gain NCEA certificates, students must reach a set total number of credits at each level, made up from achievement or unit standards or a mix of both. This is similar to the way university degrees are awarded. A range of improvements are planned for NCEA over the next 18 months, designed to help motivate students and ensure the public has confidence in the system. These changes will not disrupt students part-way through their studies. The aim of the changes is to provide more recognition for students who are performing well, and improve public confidence in the way NCEA operates. They will not affect the way students study but there will be changes over the next 18 months in the way results are reported and how NZQA monitors internal assessment. The improvements include: = Endorsement of Certificates = From this year (2007), students will be able to gain NCEA certificates with merit or excellence. The more merit and excellence grades they achieve the better the endorsement. Final details on how certificate endorsements will work will be announced by the end of June. = Endorsement of Subjects = From next year (2008), students will be able to gain merit or excellence in particular subject areas. This means that if they are doing very well in one particular area, that will be recognised in their results. = = = Not Achieved results = From 2008, if students do not achieve internal assessments for unit or achievement standards, this will be reported on their annual Result Notices. At the moment, only **not achieved** for exam results is reported. = Reporting Results = From next year, the Record of Learning will be renamed the Record of Achievement to clarify that it records only those standards that have been passed/achieved. In addition, from next year, school-leavers will also receive a School Results Summary, which will list every standard attempted by students during their time at school, and what result they achieved. This will include **not achieved** results.
 * Standards **
 * What is changing? **