Erica Stanford’s high-wire act

Sunday, 3 August 2025

Andrea Vance is National Affairs Editor for The Post and Sunday Star-Times.

OPINION: On Monday, Education Minister Erica Stanford will announce one of the most significant changes this Government will make.

The future of NCEA — the country’s main secondary school qualification — is on the line, along with that of thousands of students. And perhaps even hers.

When it was introduced by National and then implemented by Labour in the early aughts, NCEA was meant to offer flexibility, fairness, and real-world relevance.

In the quarter-century since, it’s become a grab-bag of disconnected credits and soft options. Students are skipping exams in their tens of thousands, employers don’t rate it, teachers don’t trust it and parents don’t understand it.

A damning Government briefing presented to Stanford earlier this year laid it out plainly: students were dodging exams.

“This trend raises concerns about the depth and consistency of subject learning, and the long-term credibility of the qualification,” officials reportedly wrote. (The briefing was leaked out but has not been released publicly).

NCEA Level 1, the foundation year of the qualification, has already been through a recent, major shake-up.

The changes trace back to a 2018 review launched by the previous Labour Government, aimed at fixing what was broken: too much assessment, overloaded teachers, unclear pathways for students, and a qualification that wasn’t valued enough by employers or universities.

By 2024, nationwide reforms at Level 1 rolled out. They introduced a range of assessment types, a new 20-credit co-requisite to guarantee basic literacy and numeracy, fewer subjects, and trimmed-down standards (just four per subject).

But then the current coalition Government hit pause on the Level 2 and 3 reforms, citing design flaws and the need for a curriculum refresh.

Level 1 changes, however, were already in motion and went ahead. Despite the effort, the recent ERO report was brutal: NCEA Level 1 still “is not yet a fair and reliable measure of knowledge and skills.”

Nearly two in five students and almost half of parents don’t really understand what’s required, it found. Students aren’t being properly prepared for Level 2, making the leap bigger and harder than before, and employers remain unconvinced the qualification gets young people ready for work.

Fairness was a whole other mess. Because schools still have too much flexibility, difficulty and workload vary wildly and so some students miss out on key knowledge.

And with more reports being submitted digitally, the normalisation of AI tools is becoming a headache.

The reform left teachers and school leaders overwhelmed. Three-quarters of leaders and two-thirds of teachers called Level 1 unmanageable.

There’s also a stark equity gap because Māori, Pacific, and students with special assessment conditions are being left behind. New literacy and numeracy co-requisites have particularly low pass rates (just 46% in numeracy) putting many students at risk of leaving school without qualifications.

The rollout was the omnishambles we’ve come to expect from government projects. Information was unclear, inconsistent, often late, and resources fell short.

The report found NCEA Level 1 in its current form “may not be serving any students very well.” The ERO recommended the government either decide what Level 1 is for — or drop the thing altogether.

And that’s exactly what Stanford seems minded to do — if not scrapping Level 1 outright, then significantly reducing its role in the system.

A more limited foundational certificate — primarily for early school leavers — is one option on the table.

She has been openly consulting with the sector on NCEA, assembling an advisory group of principals to guide her.

A growing number of schools have already stopped offering it. Data from Cambridge International Education shows the number of students dropping NCEA for Cambridge rose 19% last year, reaching 8000.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Stanford said recently, “if we end up in a position where the sector is saying, ‘look, as long as there is something else in place, we’re happy to let Level 1 go’.”

Potentially, she’s right — no other comparable country runs three years of high-stakes assessment. It’s exhausting for students, and arguably unnecessary.

But despite all the noise around Level 1, the government’s sights are set much higher. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon talked recently about a fundamental overhaul of the qualification.

Stanford has signalled she isn’t out to blow up NCEA entirely.

Last month she defended it as “a very good qualification” — one that her own children are taking, and that still gets many students into top universities.

But she believes it’s strayed far from its original intent. What was meant to be flexible and student-centred has become incoherent and inconsistent — a system where students can stitch together credits from a scatter of standards and still walk away with a qualification, without ever building real depth in a subject.

But her agenda does seem to be an overhaul of the whole framework, that would mean tightening assessment pathways, restoring coherence across subjects, strengthening external exams, and maybe even reviving old-school grading — “why can’t we go back to a mark out of 100?” she asked a radio host a couple of weeks ago.

The sector and parents might share a common view that the qualifications system is failing students.

But that doesn’t make the repair job as easy as ABC.

This reset will test all of Stanford’s political instincts, her clout in Cabinet, and her ability to manage a combustible sector.

The last time a National government tried to overhaul education, it ended in revolt. National Standards torpedoed Hekia Parata’s climb up the greasy pole.

Secondary teachers are locked in pay negotiations. The Post Primary Teachers Association recently rejected a pay offer of just 1% per year for three years — reportedly one of the lowest offers ever made to their profession.

That’s put unions on a war footing. Any major reform, even one broadly supported, risks being read as provocation, especially with teachers fatigued from constant change.

Stanford has more than union resistance to manage.

Politicos whisper she has leadership potential. Luxon handed her education, a cornerstone campaign issue and a portfolio he considers his signature project.

But that comes with pressure, and the government badly needs wins that feel meaningful — not just another TikTok of Luxon pointing at things in a hard hat.

Her own colleagues aren’t always fans. Ambitious, visible, and backed by Luxon — that combination rarely goes unpunished in the National Party.

The stakes are huge. NCEA threads through the lives of nearly every Kiwi teenager, shaping their futures and the hopes their families carry.

But the real test might not be in the classroom. It will be inside the Beehive, where the battle for education reform could become as fraught as any final exam if Stanford fails to pass.

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