{"id":5224,"date":"2018-12-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/cw_post\/insights-from-aotearoa-new-zealand-ncea\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T13:07:04","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T18:07:04","slug":"insights-from-aotearoa-new-zealand-ncea","status":"publish","type":"cw_post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/cw_post\/insights-from-aotearoa-new-zealand-ncea\/","title":{"rendered":"Insights from Aotearoa New Zealand: NCEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This is the twelfth article in the series <\/span><\/i>Baskets of Knowledge from Aotearoa New Zealand<\/i><\/b>, which highlights insights from a totally different education system about what is possible in transforming our education system. Read the first article <\/span><\/i>here<\/span><\/i><\/a>.If you are going to New Zealand, be sure to read <\/span><\/i>NCEA in Context<\/span><\/i><\/a>. There are other resources at <\/span><\/i>NZQA<\/span><\/i><\/a> and <\/span><\/i>NZCER <\/span><\/i><\/a>that will be valuable as well.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The <\/span>National Certificate of Educational Achievement<\/span><\/a> (NCEA) is not a high school diploma. It is a certificate of achievement that indicates the level of achievement that students have learned at their completion of school. NCEA certificates of achievement aren\u2019t received. They are earned. Time in the seat doesn\u2019t matter. What matters is demonstrating learning. <\/span><\/p>\n

The NCEA is a very sophisticated system with intentional thought given to ensuring that it is meaningful to students, schools, and the tertiary system. I\u2019m going to do my best to translate the NCEA to our American education system by highlighting features of the system in bold. <\/span><\/p>\n

Certifying Learning<\/b>: Students are expected to remain in school through Year 13 (the same as our twelfth grade), although students can leave school earlier with hopefully a Level 1 or Level 2 certificate in hand. NZ\u2019s Ministry of Education has policy goals to increase the number of students who complete all thirteen years, the number of students who receive certificates of achievement, and the levels of certificates of achievement earned. (Please note: The idea of extended graduation rates or multiple pathways in which students leave secondary school and can then return seemed foreign to nearly all of the educators I spoke with about it. Although they are organized around the idea that students are in different places on the continuum of learning, the idea of extending time hasn\u2019t accompanied it.)<\/span><\/p>\n

The certificate, managed by the <\/span>New Zealand Qualifications Authority,<\/span><\/a> is part of the adult education and workforce development system. The Level of certificate opens different doors. \u00a0Young adults can continue to earn higher certificate levels in college or university, through technical programs, or in other training programs. (See <\/span>previous article<\/span><\/a> about curricular and achievement levels.)<\/span><\/p>\n

This is how NCEA works (from <\/span>NZQA website<\/span><\/a>):<\/span><\/p>\n