Maharey must explain why NZQA failed to act
new-zealand-national-party
Mon Jan 22 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
Maharey must explain why NZQA failed to act
Monday, 22 January 2007, 9:35 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party
Katherine Rich MP
National Party Education Spokeswoman
21 January 2007
Maharey must explain why NZQA failed to act on report
Education Minister Steve Maharey must explain why the NZ Qualifications Authority failed to act on the advice of an expert report on the moderation of NCEA grading, says National's Education spokeswoman, Katherine Rich.
"On Thursday last week, before the NCEA results were released, NZQA Deputy Chief Executive Bali Haque said this year's marks were 'robust and reliable', but on Friday he said the system was 'under review'.
"Steve Maharey must tell students, teachers and parents which statement he stands by."
Mrs Rich is commenting on a report in the Herald on Sunday, which has obtained a report written in 2001 by government statistician David Rhoades. Dr Rhoades was contracted to review the moderation system, compare it to the previous model, and consider whether NCEA was credible enough to be understood by the public and education sector. He said that:
* 'Given the amount of effort that is going into moderation, the statistical value of the moderation sample is less than it could be.'
* 'The moderation system will be unable to reliably detect problems with marking a particular standard at a particular school in a particular year.'
* 'The proposed system has no statistical procedure for maintaining standards between years.'
"It is clear that Rhoades was concerned about the whole process of marking selection. He made it clear that marked work must be randomly selected.
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"It affects the robustness of the system when the sample of work is not big enough and schools select their own markings for review.
"If the moderation process is to have any mathematical credibility, the markings have to be randomly sampled by reviewers.
'This is a non-political issue. It's about maths, and getting an appropriate sample size of papers selected at random - not selected by the school.
"Some might think a discussion about the statistical validity of the moderation process is a dry subject but it's extremely important. Not only does it take a huge amount of work and money to undertake moderation of internal assessment, it also brings confidence to the whole system.
'If the moderation model is not structured properly, the whole review process becomes pointless and it undermines confidence in NCEA as a qualification.
'As Dr Rhoades warned, if moderation is not done correctly there is 'no guarantee of fairness to each individual student'.
"Steve Maharey must explain why this report was not implemented, because it casts a shadow on internal assessment for NCEA. Faith in the system is damaged if there is insufficient overall monitoring of how marks are given.
"He must assure students, teachers and parents that the moderation of NCEA marking is reliable, when this report casts significant doubt on the validity of the process."
ENDS
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