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inseparable from them. The standards are embedded in the examination. This holds true
even for the new 2004 Scholarship which aimed to set an explicit, stand-alone standard
for each subject.
51 Setting standards for school students, based on national curriculum statements, which are
deliberately developmental in nature, presents a different challenge from setting
standards in industry, the professions and most tertiary courses. School students are
developing and growing, and the standards must acknowledge a wide base of
participating talent and developing achievement. They require the interpretation of
experienced teachers.
52 The Ministry and NZQA recognised this complexity, and did not ignore links between
curriculum and assessment. The standards for the 2004 Scholarship subjects, the
subsequent examinations papers, marking schedules and the marking were in the hands
of a reasonably tight core of people in the secondary and tertiary education community.
These dedicated people, on whom the assessment system relies, were frequently past
examiners and markers of the University Bursary examinations or the NZEST
examinations. A number of them served on the Ministry’s standards-setting panels and
brought their experience and knowledge to the task.
53 They did however need firm guidance and direction. A degree of inflexibility in the roles
of the two agencies seems to have impeded the coordination and resolution of issues
needed to implement a new examination with new standards, and a new way of assessing
and ranking. This inflexibility manifested itself most obviously at the working level and
is likely to be rooted in history and is difficult to untangle. While differences in view
amongst professionals are to be expected, the lesson to be drawn is that the issues
debated in both organisations need to be referred to senior managers for resolution rather
than languishing at lower levels. The leaders of the respective organisations have not
been fully successful in ensuring that substantive issues are escalated for resolution and
this requires urgent and sustained attention.
54 The National Assessment Facilitators in NZQA should have been fully involved in
setting the 2004 Scholarship standards instead of being at the margins, if only to reduce
the time it took later to refine the standards and make the examinations operationally
possible. More realistic knowledge of the length and demands of assessment operations
would have informed the content of the standards, kept them realistic for a one-off
competitive assessment, and kept the standards-setting on target so that support material
could be generated in time to meet the school year. Equally, the Ministry should have
been kept informed and involved in the assessment details instead of being kept at a
distance by NZQA.
55 One point where the relationship broke down was professional development. It seems
that at the time of the Scholarship examination standards being written, the writers
developed early exemplars. The Ministry felt the quality of these exemplars was uneven
but they were a resource and were given to NZQA. Further, the Ministry felt that the
Jumbo days offered the chance to stage-manage some of this exploratory and
developmental material. However, NZQA was reluctant to use the material because it
wished to have accurate assessment exemplars based on firmly agreed subject standards,
knowing that teachers rely closely on past experiences and examples when preparing
students for competitive examinations. NZQA subsequently contracted the development
of new exemplars. The two agencies did not seem able to resolve their differences. The
outcome was that the booklets for the professional development Jumbo days contained
little material to help embed the Scholarship examination standards.
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