Welcome to this edition of QA News . It's been a busy quarter for NZQA.

One of the highlights was the launch of our first Māori Strategy and Implementation Plan - Te Rautaki Māori me te Mahere Whakatinana a te Mana Tohu Mātauranga o Aotearoa - at Parliament on 24 May. Developing the strategy was a collaborative effort with our Māori Reference Group and involved many external agencies and sector groups. I was delighted that so many people were able to join us for the launch, hosted by the Hon Parekura Horomia.

Te Rautaki is a vital strategy for NZQA as we work towards a goal of improved Māori educational outcomes. Implementing the strategy is a challenging journey for us involving staff right across NZQA as well as partnerships with other key education agencies.

We also have an important role to play in the quality assurance component of the tertiary education reforms. We've begun consulting with tertiary organisations about a new system of self-assessment and external evaluation and review. Deputy Chief Executive Quality Assurance Mike Willing explains what this is all about in the article on tertiary reforms.

At the secondary school level, the NCEA enhancements were recently announced and NZQA has responsibility for implementing certain of these (more details in the article). These address key concerns of student motivation, consistency in internal assessment and public confidence in the assessment system.

Some of these enhancements will be in place almost immediately. Others are scheduled over the next year.

Both tertiary reform quality assurance and NCEA enhancements are significant and important, and indeed epitomise the work of our two operational divisions: the Quality Assurance Division and the Qualifications Division.

We look forward to working with you over the next few months as we progress the work.

Dr Karen Poutasi
Chief Executive