Focusing Point: NCEA

NCEA. Definitely a hairy subject in the minds of students and parents alike. Ugly debates are constantly hashed over NCEA, its merits and its faults. But first, what is NCEA?

Well, NCEA is New Zealand's nationally and internationally recognised qualification. Students sit what are known as Unit Standards or Achievement Standards to achieve credits. These credits are put towards a total amount which determine whether the student has achieved NCEA. There are three levels to NCEA. Level 1 is the first Level of NCEA which Year 11 students (or 5th form) aim to achieve. The student must acquire a total of 80 credits to achieve Level 1. This should not be a difficult task as the five subjects the student can take at Rangitikei College should equal at least 80 credits or over. This is true for whatever subjects the student may take. This also includes Exams also known as External Standards.
Year 12 students (6th form), are required to be on to Level 2 of NCEA. This also involves accumulating a total of 80 credits in which 20 can come from Level 1. The same is true of Year 13 students (7th form), who study NCEA Level 3. They also need 80 credits, of which 20 can come from Level 2.

NCEA is the new equivalent of School C. It is argued that School C is a superior system to NCEA in regards to fairness. In the School C system you were marked by percentages. If you got all questions right you would get 100% or a pass. If you got, say, two or three questions wrong then your mark would be reduced to around 75% or so. This would still count as a passing mark.
With the NCEA system you either sit Achievement standards ot Unit Standards. An Achievement Standard is the usual paper a student may sit. A Unit Standard is a standard that has been simplified slightly to make the paper easier to pass. With these papers a student may have to answer all or a number of questions correctly to achieve. In most cases it is all questions need to be answered correctly. A question answered incorrectly can mean a fail, but there are usually re-sits.

It has been suggested that the two systems seem imperfect on their own and may be superior to the existing NCEA system if the positive attributes are fused together.
I will be posting a poll later on to find out your views on the NCEA system.

Next weeks topic will be Smoking and Drugs.
Thanks again,
Crystal :)