{"id":43,"date":"2025-09-03T09:27:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/43\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T09:27:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T09:27:37","slug":"how-ncea-can-be-gamed-according-to-school-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/43\/","title":{"rendered":"How NCEA can be ‘gamed’, according to school students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Minister Erica Stanford<\/a> has criticised NCEA for allowing students to \u201cget credits for having a part time job, or participating in a group activity, or filling in forms\u201d. With the Government currently consulting on their proposal<\/a> to scrap it, Re: News asked current and former high school students what they think about New Zealand\u2019s secondary school qualification and its flexibility. <\/p>\n

Watch what the students had to say about NCEA on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

Passing NCEA Level 3 with credits from McDonald\u2019s <\/p>\n

Re: News spoke to a 19-year-old school leaver, who only passed NCEA Level 3 because he got credits from his part-time McDonald\u2019s job. <\/p>\n

The man, who wanted to stay anonymous, passed Level 1 with excellence and Level 2 with merit. But his mental health got worse by the time Level 3 came around. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really care about school. I was trying to focus on myself and being OK.\u201d <\/p>\n

His part time Maccas job got him 80 level 3 unit credits across things like food safety, food preparation and customer service. <\/p>\n

He says he has mixed feelings about his choice to pass NCEA this way. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a seesaw about whether or not I think it really mattered.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The proposed new qualifications which might replace current NCEA qualifications. (Source: Vania Chandrawidjaja\/1News)<\/p>\n

What current students think about gaming NCEA <\/p>\n

Rutherford College\u2019s deputy head boy Isaac Lee says \u201cthe real world isn\u2019t always as forgiving as NCEA\u201d. <\/p>\n

Isaac says there is a lot of disparity between the ways credits can be earned.<\/p>\n

\"Rutherford<\/p>\n

Rutherford College deputy head boy Isaac Lee. (Source: Re: News)<\/p>\n

Some subjects require students to really push themselves for a small number of credits, while some vocational pathways allow students to do a day-long course and earn a larger number of credits, Isaac says. <\/p>\n

Hastings Boys High School board of trustees representative Roman Lauvao-Purotu says some NCEA assessments have very low achievement requirements. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have the internal marking and you’re able to pass the year without setting a final exam in exam conditions, it can get really easy to pass.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Hastings<\/p>\n

Hastings Boys High School board of trustees representative Roman Lauvao-Purotu. (Source: Re: News)<\/p>\n

How NCEA can be \u2018gamed\u2019 <\/p>\n

NCEA has three levels, usually completed from Year 11 to Year 13. <\/p>\n

To pass each level, a student needs 60 credits. <\/p>\n

Credits are earned through internal assessments, like projects or portfolios, and externally marked exams. <\/p>\n

Credits from subjects like English or Physics count towards University Entrance requirements. <\/p>\n

Unit credits, which do not count towards University Entrance, can come from things like kapa haka, workplace training, and community service. <\/p>\n

NCEA currently allows students to get enough credits during the year to pass, which means some students skip their end-of-year exams. <\/p>\n

Roman attests to this, saying he had friends who promised to show up to an exam, only to sleep in on the day. <\/p>\n

\"Rutherford<\/p>\n

Rutherford College associate principal Rozanne Donald. (Source: Re: News)<\/p>\n

Rutherford College\u2019s associate principal Rozanne Donald says there was a rule of thumb that each credit a student earned was meant to represent around 10 hours of work they had done. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I see some of the standards available to students, in their vocational space, some of them don’t really meet that requirement.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watch how students say NCEA can be ‘gamed’ on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including new anti-gang powers for Manawat\u016b police, Kim Jong Un\u2019s surprise guest, and Donald Trump fires back at rumours about his health. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Minister Erica Stanford has criticised NCEA for allowing students to \u201cget credits for having a part time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[84,42,43,83,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-re-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}