History of NCEA

Learn about when NCEA was introduced, why it was needed and how it has changed over the years

What is NCEA?

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is New Zealand’s main secondary school qualification and was introduced between 2002 and 2004.

NCEA replaced:

  • School Certificate qualifications
  • University Entrance qualifications
  • Sixth Form Certificate and
  • University Bursary qualifications.

Since its introduction, the qualification has evolved to reflect the changing world young people are living in. Changes have been made to recognise the diverse needs of learners and ensure they are equipped with the right skills for further education and employment.

Why was NCEA introduced? 

Vocational skills and knowledge previously not recognised

Previously, secondary school qualifications had a strong focus on academic subjects. Students interested in vocational subjects couldn’t get qualifications in those subjects or gain recognition for their skills and knowledge.

Reliance on exams

Secondary school qualifications relied heavily on exams (external assessment) meaning not all a student’s learning throughout the year was considered. Also, students were graded against their peers, with only a limited number of students allowed to pass each year.

NCEA recognises students competencies and skills

NCEA provides a fuller picture of a student’s competencies and skills. Assessment is continuous throughout the year, so everything the student completes counts towards their qualification. A student is graded against the outcomes of a standard. Any student who demonstrates the required knowledge and skills of a standard achieves the NCEA credit.

NCEA allows more students to gain qualifications

Since NCEA was introduced, more students are leaving school with qualifications. NCEA is accepted both in New Zealand and overseas by most employers and tertiary education providers.

Its placement on the 10-level New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework (previously the National Qualifications Framework) shows how it fits more broadly into the New Zealand education system and the pathways in offers into further academic and vocational education.

How has NCEA changed since it was introduced? 

Since its introduction, NCEA has evolved to become a more flexible and inclusive model of education. NCEA recognises and caters to the diverse needs of students and their different learning pathways.

NCEA certificate endorsement

Key changes include introducing the NCEA certificate endorsement, designed to recognise student achievement at Merit or Excellence across all learning areas. This has been further expanded to include endorsement for strong performance in individual courses.

About NCEA endorsements

Newly aligned standards introduced

The Ministry of Education has reviewed standards against the New Zealand Curriculum and newly aligned standards have been introduced progressively.

NCEA online

As part of NZQA’s Future State initiative, NZQA introduced NCEA Online as an option in external exams. NCEA Online allows students to be assessed online, using a computer instead of traditional pen and paper.

This 21st century approach to digital assessment will support innovation in teaching and learning and will change along with evolving technology.

Timeline of events that led to NCEA

This table shows the events that took place that eventually resulted in NCEA being implemented in NZ. This table and information is taken from a research paper by Bill Lennox about the origins of NCEA.

Year What happened that year
1934 School Certificate (SC) is introduced
1945 SC becomes the only form 5 award, awarded overall for results in English and best three other subjects
1967 SC awarded in single subjects only. Since 1967 there has been no such thing as a nationally recognised overall "pass" in SC
1969 Jack Shallcrass calls for SC to be abolished, largely because it imposes one course and one examination on all, regardless of ability
1969 Education in Charge (PPTA) calls for agreed criteria, clearly stated learning objectives and profile reporting instead of single figure results
1972 Warwick Elley and Ian Livingstone discuss the abolition (or at least partial internal assessment) of SC and University Entrance, and the need for specified learning outcomes
1974 Report on the nation-wide Educational Development Conference proposes that SC be phased out and replaced by moderated teacher assessments, reporting on "levels of attainment" in each subject. In 1974 the fully internally assessed option for SC Art and Mathematics were introduced. Similar schemes were introduced in subsequent years for Science and English (1976) and Workshop Technology (1979). These options remain today
1981 New Zealand Employers Federation booklet calls for full internal assessment of SC, assessment against standards, results as personal profiles and the removal of the distinction between so-called "academic" and "vocational" courses
1981 PPTA Journal contains a series of articles on assessment. Most writers (especially David Eddy) promote enhanced internal assessment and the recognition of a wider range of skills and abilities
1982 Bursaries English examination marking schedule uses written criteria for assessing literature essays. Over the next 20 years most marking schedules for School Certificate and Bursaries examinations introduce written criteria. In effect, student work is assessed against criteria (a form of standards) leading to the allocation of grades; then marks are allocated, generally without the use of criteria
1983 Alison Gilmore (NZCER) discusses ways of moderating teacher assessments, including inspection, consensus and "group standards" as alternatives to statistical moderation
1985 Warwick Elley (in PPTA Journal) describes our "sluggish advance towards internal assessment" and points out that few comparable countries have national examinations at all three levels. Elley promotes greater school flexibility in organising learning and sees the abolition of ranking and descriptions of what students "can do" as "a long-term ideal"
1985 Interim report of the Committee of Inquiry into Curriculum, Assessment and Qualifications in Forms 5 to 7 leads to the immediate abolition of the University Entrance examination and its replacement with fully internally assessed Sixth Form Certificate (SFC), statistically moderated as proposed by Elley and Livingstone in 1972. (SFC had been in place alongside UE since 1969.) For the next 18 years, until the introduction of NCEA level 2 examinations in 2003, New Zealand has two examinations for senior school students
1986 Learning and Achieving (the full report of the 1985 Committee of Inquiry) calls for far-sighted reforms. This is a key document in the evolution of assessment and qualifications in this country. Overall, the report says, the move should be to enhanced school flexibility, enhanced internal assessment, and assessment against criteria. The report proposes:
  • For form 5: Full internal assessment using standards at three levels and leading to profile reporting. Schools should be able to design their own courses
  • A similar system for form 6
  • For form 7: An achievement based system using five levels of achievement, partially internally assessed
1986 Department of Education commences form 6 achievement based assessment (ABA) trials. Grade-related criteria are developed (at 4 or 5 levels) in the various aspects of each subject and trials held to investigate ways of moderating teacher assessments.This was an attempt to remove the predetermined national distribution of Sixth Form Certificate grades (where 4% of all candidates get grade 1) and statistical moderation of teacher judgements (using the previous year's SC results). In essence, the aim was to attach meaning to SFC grades. The trials ran until 1988 and were discontinued when more radical qualifications and assessment reform was signalled by the 1988 Hawke Report, in effect leading directly to the establishment of NZQA and the NQF.Many schools continued to use grade-related criteria in assessing for Sixth Form Certificate and the practice is common today. This creates confusion and frustration when schools have to reconcile their standards based results with the national norm-referenced structure
1989 The Project ABLE report confirmed the directions of Learning and Achieving and added "SC has largely outlived its usefulness". The report called for a standards based approach and a single cumulative national certificate for school learners
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1990 and beyond

By 1990 the writing was on the wall. But little of it was legible. Even at the end of that decade much remained unfulfilled, despite three dramatic developments of the nineties:

  • The national curriculum that was introduced for schools was based squarely on written descriptions of learning outcomes for the separate aspects of each subject.
  • For the first time, all secondary qualifications were administered by one government agency, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
  • The National Qualifications Framework had a demonstrable impact, especially in schools that were trying to introduce more varied and flexible learning in response to increased senior school retention rates.

But some of the evolution and advocacy had been absorbed into the system. There was full or partial internal assessment in about two thirds of School Certificate and Bursaries subjects. Many examination prescriptions described outcomes and objectives, rather than just content.

In 1998, when government policy was being finalised, NCEA was described by some as a way out of the so-called "dual system": unit standards and the traditional examination based awards. Schools could offer either or both.

Of course, it was not a "system" at all. It was a discordant medley resulting from years of uncoordinated and unresolved incremental change. Government's intention throughout the nineties had been to remove the examination-based system once the Framework was in place. (In 1993 the aim was to base all national schools qualifications on unit standards by 1997.)

The NCEA can be seen as a blend of the Framework and the traditional examination based awards. Most see it as a compromise. But it is also a sensible and inevitable product of the previous 30 years.

One thing that officials, politicians, principals and teachers do agree on is that the NCEA will change over time. Perhaps an understanding of the continuum that brought us, however haltingly, to the NCEA will make it clear where we should be going over the next few years.

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