New policy on reporting results

NZQA has announced its position on the reporting of secondary results, following several months' consultation with schools, education groups and the community.

This clarification will help to ensure that all data about student achievement is consistent.

The new policy means that

Karen Van Rooyen, Chief Executive of NZQA, feels that the policy will bring a new consistency to results reporting.

"The only way to present a consistent picture is to report what students have actually achieved," she says.

"For most students, the extent to which they pass or fail actually reflects how challenged they have been by the programme developed by the school. To report failure in that context would be inconsistent, as the challenges posed by schools' programmes vary markedly."

"Not achieving a standard can mean many different things about a student: that they hadn't done enough work; that they narrowly missed out; they didn't hand in the work; they had a bad day; or that they were working out of their comfort zone."

Critics of the new policy say it removes the notion of failure. Ms Van Rooyen disagrees.

"I don't think there's a school in New Zealand that doesn't let its students know when they haven't achieved a standard."

"Schools record both achieved and not achieved results in school reports, so students will know exactly where their strengths and weaknesses lie."

"It's important for students to know when they haven't achieved so they can work on improving their performance," says Ms Van Rooyen.

Students know whether they have achieved in external assessments because NZQA sends them their marked examination papers. All externally assessed results will be available on candidates' individual website login pages.

Critics also say that the new policy makes it harder for employers to know what a student knows and can do. Ms Van Rooyen says this isn't the case.

"Potential employers know what skills a learner has by what appears on their Record of Learning."

"Employers don't expect prospective employees to highlight their failures in their CVs - when was the last CV you saw that did that?"

"If employers want to recruit someone with particular skills, they will look for those skills on that person's Record of Learning. If the skills aren't there, that's as informative about the prospective employee as if they were."