Widespread agreement on the proposed changes to secondary school qualifications will be crucial to their success, writes Kate Gainsford
If the proposed changes to secondary school qualifications are to last, there needs to be widespread agreement that the changes have been developed thoughtfully and collaboratively.
Many principals and teachers are worried that the proposals represent an over-correction from the flexibility of the present system and that students will be left without the Level 1 qualification they would otherwise have earned and with no robust vocational pathway yet in existence to carry on with.
A strength of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is that learning programmes can be broad as well as deep, adaptive and responsive to the needs of an individual, a community, a society and an economy.
Now, the Government is proposing a much narrower range of acceptable subjects and the notion of ‘acceptable losses’ with young people leaving school after Year 11, aged 16, with no credible, widely recognised qualification.
Rationing of success is exactly what abandoning School Certificate and other unfair ranking devices was intended to overcome. To re-introduce this notion is a significant change in philosophy from qualifications recording achievement to rewarding a much smaller – often more advantaged – group.
Every parent wants their children to succeed. We fear the proposed changes will reduce achievement in the most disadvantaged communities. The greater the achievement at secondary level, the better the life outcomes in terms of income and health for an individual, and the better educated a community is, the more likely it is that people can collaborate to solve complex problems.
We are also concerned about how much careful thought has been given to the proposed vocational subjects to be included on the approved subjects list. In the absence of fully integrated national vocational education pathways, secondary schools have developed local responses to give every student the opportunity to succeed. For a couple of decades, the flexibility of NCEA has meant meaningful programmes at a local level have been recognised within the NCEA.
The Government’s plan is that Industry Skill Councils (ISCs) will ‘work with industry’ to devise these ‘subjects’ which are currently no more than political ideas. ISCs have not even been established yet and will inherit the workloads and lack of resourcing evident in the Workforce Development Councils that are soon to be abolished. There is no guarantee that the industry groups the Government thinks are acceptable will play ball. We have been wanting vocational pathways for students forever. We need a more coherent approach which ensures the pathways are clear and accessible for rangatahi whether they live in Grey Lynn or Greymouth.
There is no hint in these proposals of an understanding of the future staffing and workforce development needs to meet expectations. There are significant resourcing implications for secondary schools, who provide a specialist workforce to deliver the curriculum and prepare students for qualifications.
It is likely the Ministry of Education does not even have accurate raw data about how many English, Maths and Science teachers are currently employed, let alone the number necessary for an imposed approved subject list. Principals, teachers, students and communities need to have faith that these big-ticket items are actively being addressed.
A poor track record for resourcing and rollout of initiatives in the secondary sector in particular, means there is a level of scepticism about any genuine consultation process. This could be easily dispelled if the large number of submissions already made, and those still to come, lead to constructive changes to the current proposals.
*Kate Gainsford is chair of the Secondary Principals’ Council.
