Macleans College response
I am astonished at the changes proposed and believe that these will lead to a real dumbing down of history in our schools.
My main concerns are as follows;
1. No proposed syllabus. This seems to mean that schools can teach their students whichever topics they please. It also raises the questions as how it will be possible for external standards to be marked effectively as a huge range of topics could be taught across schools. How are markers meant to have sufficient knowledge of all these topics to mark the externals fairly and accurately?
2. This also leads onto another area of major concern, that of generic questions. These have been a disaster at level 2 for the essay externals. Teachers and students spend half their time trying to figure out exactly want the questions is asking. I am doubtful as to whether generic questions actually teach any worthwhile historical skill.
3. The proposed increase in internal standards. One of the criticisms of NCEA has been the credibility of internals when school policies with regard to time given to do internals vary so much between schools . How many reassessments each school allows also varies greatly from school to school. The impartiality of marking has also been questioned. By increasing the amount of internals this will erode the credibility of NCEA as a qualification. Colleagues of mine work in overseas schools where the only means of assessment is internal. They have complained that this leads to the demotivation of students who only do work if it is directly relevant to what is going to be tested in internals. It is hard to see what the reason for the justification is for the focus on internal standards.
I believe that we should keep the majority of the achievement standards as external so that there is a proper means to compare student achievement and also to ensure the credibility of the qualification.
4. The elimination of essays as a standard. Again, writing essays is a key historical skill and if students go onto study history at university, most if not all assessment will be done through essays.
Again, the elimination of essays will undermine the credibility and rigour of NCEA history.
Regards,
Nick Hamilton, Head of History, Macleans College.
