Abstract:
The original intent of New Zealand’s innovative qualifications structure was to give equal status to a wide variety of qualifications and reduce disparity in educational achievement across different ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Since the implementation of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) in 2002, schools have had considerable flexibility in developing programmes of assessment for national qualifications that best meet the diverse needs of their students. In 2010, a new national curriculum was implemented. To ensure alignment between this new curriculum and NCEA, a large‐scale Standards Alignment Project was initiated, which served the additional purpose of addressing outstanding issues of fairness that had been unresolved since the introduction of NCEA. This research used a multi‐site case study strategy and mixed methods approach to investigate the implications of the standards alignment for Level 1 qualifications attainment following the first year of a three‐year roll‐out, with a particular focus on implications for Māori and Pasifika students in low‐decile schools. The initial premise that these students might be disadvantaged by the standards alignment changes was unsupported by the data, which showed that attainment increased in most categories examined. The findings have implications for Level 1 qualifications attainment and the on‐going evolution of the NCEA qualification, including the dilemma policy‐makers and schools face in providing fair and equitable qualifications and qualifications pathways for diverse students that do not limit post‐school opportunities (credibility), whilst maximising students’ chances of NCEA success without recourse to curriculum‐derived unit standards (accessibility). The study raises questions about whether, in addressing one set of issues relating to fairness, the standards alignment may have inadvertently created another.
