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A Wellington student has welcomed an overhaul of the “flawed” NCEA curriculum, although most of his fellow pupils are less enthused about the shift away from internal assessments.

The Government announced sweeping changes to New Zealand’s education system today, which includes replacing the NCEA system with two new qualifications at Year 12 and 13.

NCEA Level 1 will also be scrapped in favour of what’s being called a “Foundational Skills Award”, with Year 11 students prioritising lessons in literacy and numeracy.

Brynn Pierce, a Year 12 student at Newlands College and the Youth MP for Andy Foster, told the Herald it’s been “overly confusing” trying to navigate the NCEA system in his first year using it.

“That kind of confusion impacts immigrants, it impacts vulnerable communities who might not have been through that system or might not understand it,” he said.

“Also, it’s very vague in terms of course endorsement.

“Different schools have different standards as part of different courses ... I know for a fact universities don’t really value course endorsement.”

Brynn Pierce is a Year 12 student at Newlands College and the Youth MP for Andy Foster.

Newlands College stopped accrediting students with NCEA Level 1 last year, raising concerns that some would no longer receive any qualification if they chose to leave school after Year 11.

Yet the introduction of the Foundational Skills Award fixes that, Pierce said.

“One of the massive challenges with NCEA at the moment is it tries to be a jack of all trades. It’s our qualification for seeing if you do well in school.

“Hopefully the new standard and the new system, with a little more structure, will mean that universities have a more standardised qualification to go by in each individual subject.”

Pierce praised the revised Year 11 certificate for prioritising “basic competency in English and maths and the skills that they might need”.

However, others’ attitudes to the overall reforms have been mixed.

“There is certainly an appetite for it. Some are saying, ‘Can it come sooner?’ Because they want a standard which they can use overseas, which is trusted in different areas.

Wellington student Brynn Pierce has welcomed an overhaul of the "flawed" NCEA curriculum.

“Whilst others are just concerned about passing the year.”

Pierce said most people his age would “agree that NCEA is very, very flawed in its own ways”, yet Education Minister Erica Stanford would still have to contend with ensuring the new qualification is flexible enough for all students.

The main concern for students has been the curriculum pivoting away from internal assessments.

“I’d be lying if I said that students were happy about the lesser focus on internals. Most students are quite unhappy about it.”

In his experience, Pierce said internals were “very prone to misuse and to misconduct, in particular with AI”, which had created irregularities between schools and left teachers providing students with excessive help.

“That’s something which simply can’t really be avoided and schools aren’t really equipped to deal with.”

The reforms were an opportunity to create a more structured curriculum that standardised the expectations for students nationally, Pierce said.

While the curriculum overhaul won’t be implemented until after Pierce leaves school, he was excited about what it offered those younger than him.

“By giving students a greater opportunity to do well in school and by giving them an opportunity to prove their worth, that will actually change a lot of others’ pathways for the better,” he said.

“I still care very much about the changes because my little sister will go through it, a lot of my friends will go through it and they deserve a really good quality education.”