A quarter of high schools in New Zealand now offer students alternative education qualifications, like Cambridge International, instead of the national school qualification NCEA level one.
Figures from Cambridge International Education, which run the Cambridge exams, show the number of students sitting its qualification assessments increased by nearly twenty percent last year to 8,000 pupils.
This comes off the back of a report published at the end of last year by the Education Review Office which said it was not clear what purpose NCEA Level One served.
So what should be done with NCEA, which is now twenty three years old?
Dr Michael Johnston is a senior research fellow at the New Zealand Initiative think tank, and led the ministerial advisory group which reviewed primary school English, mathematics and statistics learning.
He is a vocal critic of NCEA and joins Emile Donovan to discuss.
Dr Michael Johnston is a senior fellow at the policy think tank New Zealand Initiative. Photo: New Zealand Initiative
