Government confirms tens of thousands of young people will pay price of qualifications reform

The Ministry’s projections, hidden for nearly 18 months but revealed in documents released to PPTA Te Wehengarua under the Official Information Act, shed light on what the Ministry advised Minister Erica Stanford was a ‘potential significant drop in attainment of the qualifications’ replacing NCEA.

‘At least initially more students would leave school without any formal qualification. Students attaining at any level of NCEA is associated with better post-school outcomes… compared to those leaving school without any qualification. This means the proposed changes could also lead to worse post-school outcomes for some students,’ officials advised the Minister.

The modelling validates similar work carried out by BERL for PPTA that the Minister dismissed as ‘disgusting’ and ‘scaremongering’.

The Ministry’s modelling shows Year 12 attainment rates falling an additional 15 percent in the Ministry’s ‘optimistic’ scenario and by an additional 27 percent in a ‘pessimistic scenario’ (Figure 1).

‘Under the proposed changes, attainment rates would decrease significantly,’ and ‘further estimates show that the decrease in attainment rates is likely to be most significant for students facing more EQI (equity index barriers)’, says the advice. The impact is most severe for students at the poorest schools, with attainment drops ranging from falls of 27 to 52 percent.

“How can the Minister say time and time again that the thing she cares most about in education is closing the equity gap when her reforms are going to have the worst impact on the lives of young people who are facing the most socio-economic barriers to achievement at school? ” , says Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president.

“We cannot believe that the Minister proceeded  with the changes, despite being informed by officials in May last year that the life choices of tens of thousands of young people were going to be significantly worse as a result.

“Teachers, and everyone else who cares about these young people, cannot stand by and watch this happen. We urge the Minister to think of these young people and go back to the drawing board. There is still time.”

The Ministry, in the information obtained by PPTA, advises the Minister that despite potential mitigations, ‘the modelling still indicates that the risk of decreased attainment for at least the first few cohorts (year groups of students) could be high.’

Chris Abercrombie said mitigations recommended by the Ministry included ensuring the sector was sufficiently resourced and had plenty of time to carry out the changes and developing effective vocational pathways to give young people more options.

“However, teachers’ experience is that the Government has failed to effectively resource reforms in the past, just as it is failing to do so with the new curriculum. And we have not been given any information about how the vocational pathways will be created, how they will be delivered, who will deliver them, or how accessible they will be for young people outside the big cities.

“Given this experience,  we have no confidence that the huge risks associated with the new qualifications will be mitigated in any way, shape or form.

“The Minister needs to front up to these young people, who are going to be the ones who pay the price of these reforms for the rest of their lives, - and their whānau – and explain why their lives don’t matter.”

Figure 1. Estimated percentage of participants attaining the Year 12 qualification under assessment system changes, MoE and BERL modelling 

• Estimated based on released graphs

Government's response to PPTA official information request

Modelling explainer