Some key parts:
A leading education researcher warns new high-stakes NCEA literacy and maths tests could do more harm than good.
From 2026 students would not be allowed an NCEA certificate until they had passed all three tests in reading, writing and maths.
Darr said schools needed other options for assessing literacy and numeracy and meeting the requirements should not be a prerequisite for receiving an NCEA qualification.
Literacy and numeracy could be a separate qualification, or they could be included in the NCEA certificates in the same manner that standards from other subjects were included.
It must’ve been relaxed since I went through NCEA then (around 15 years ago).
To pass, you needed a certain amount of English and maths credits and then the rest could be made up of whatever other subjects you were studying.
Also, you could pass NCEA Level 1 on unit standards alone. Iirc these didn’t have end of year assessments, were either pass/fail (not a achievement, merit or excellence like the achievement standards) and if you had a pulse and / or could write your name, you were likely to pass
Sorry, it gets even more complicated. So university entrance requires specific credits in english/maths. But NCEA has numeracy and literacy skill requirements but you don’t have to get those credits specifically from “English” or “Maths” subjects. So for example you can get your reading/writing/maths credits in the Geography class. However, this is based on which standards your school has picked, as there is flexibility over which assessments under each subject they will teach.
Sorry if what I wrote was misleading, I’ll edit a little to clarify.
Unit standards were a non-exam way of assessing. Exams were sent to other schools to be graded, but I’m not sure that is the case with unit standards. Probably the teacher has a lot of discretion. Also, if you were in NCEA 15 years ago then it was still pretty early days I think. I presume it’s been refined over time.
Back in the day, universities had to add in their own requirements on top of NCEA and re-test everyone for literacy.
Looks like its legacy is still going on here.
Basically getting overseas students to demonstrate proficiency through ESOL wasn’t enough because it turned out a significant proportion of NZ native English speakers were coming through NCEA without the language level required for tertiary.