Alarming Rate of Failure in New Literacy and Numeracy Exams in New Zealand

Children pictured in a classroom at Waterview Primary School in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 4, 2018. (Phil Walter/Getty Images)

A pilot program for a new literacy and numeracy high school assessment in New Zealand has revealed the alarming deterioration in education standards, demonstrating an urgent need for education reform, according to an expert.

New Zealand’s National Certificate of Education Achievement (NCEA), the qualification for senior secondary school students, is undergoing changes to ensure results correlate more closely to actual literacy and numeracy skills.

However, the results of a trial run of the new assessments revealed that just over one-third of students reached the writing standard, and around two-thirds reached the reading and numeracy standards.

Michael Johnston, an education expert for the think tank New Zealand Initiative, said it would be difficult to introduce a change that would result in fewer students receiving qualifications.

“Yet it is imperative new requirements are not laid aside altogether,” he said.

Johnston told The Epoch Times that the alarming rate of failure was not due to the difficulty of the exams but primarily caused by poor teaching standards.

“The tests are about right. They are pitched to test the levels of literacy and numeracy that are required to live and work in an information-rich society, and they seem to be valid and reliable,” he said. “The problem is that we don’t teach these things properly at primary school level.”

Johnston believes the education department should move forward with the standards of the reformed assessments but that it should not be a corequisite for obtaining an NCEA certificate.

“Students can be credentialed at an appropriate level of literacy and numeracy, but we won’t get a situation where only a third or fewer students get an NCEA certificate,” he said.

Senior students attend school in Auckland, New Zealand, on Oct. 26, 2021. (Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Falling Standards From Teachers and Students

To address the root issue, Johnston said there was an urgent need for literacy and numeracy teaching at a primary level with a “scientifically proven, structured approach.”

In 2014, the Tertiary Education Commission found that in a sample of 800 students, over 40 percent were functionally illiterate and innumerate.

According to OECD’s PISA rankings, the maths skills of 15-year-olds today fell over one year behind 15-year-olds 20 years ago.

“[Radical teaching reform] needs to be the political will from a minister of education,” Johnston said, adding that after teaching standards have successfully elevated, the assessment can be reintroduced as a requirement of NCEA.

However, another emerging issue that has contributed to the declining education standards is the decline in school attendance, which accelerated during COVID-19.

“If [students are] not turning up at school, it doesn’t matter what the teaching method is like—they’re not going to learn,” Johnston said.

The New Zealand government has set new attendance targets in an attempt to stem spiralling truancy rates.

In June, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced a national school attendance target of increasing the number of students who regularly attend (90 percent attendance) to 70 percent in 2024.

“School attendance is a long-term challenge, and many will be surprised to know it has been gradually declining across the board since 2015.

“The trend has been further accelerated by COVID-19 and now sits at around 60 percent of students who turn up 90 percent of the time,” she said.