More assessment problems

I’m somewhat staggered by the HoS report that for the last two years almost 30% of internally assessed school work has been found to be incorrect by external moderators.

I would expect you would always have 5% or so seen differently, but 30% incorrect just means that once more students, parents and employers can not rely on NCEA as a useful guide to learning and achievement. As an employer I doubt I could place any reliance on NCEA as a guide to job suitability.

A further HoS story reports:

– no school, or teacher, has ever been banned from marking because of the discrepancies.

– Principals say the marking farce has reached epidemic proportions and blame an “appalling” lack of internal assessment checks.

– Students can now go through their entire school career, and gain university entrance, without ever sitting an external exam.

The final word has to go Rory Barrett, head of maths at Macleans College.

“If I wanted to, I could get my cat through just about any internal unit standard,”

Meow!