Skyrocketing NCEA pass rates "clearly indicate" unrealistic grade inflation in New Zealand's schools, an international expert says.

An analysis of NCEA data, carried out by Stuff.co.nz, reveals pass rates at several schools leaping by as much as 50 percentage points or more since the qualification was introduced in 2004.

Nationally, the pass rate at level one has increased by 19.3 percentage points, at level two by 16.1 points and at level three, by 13.3 points.

How do you rate the NCEA? Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute

SCHOOL REPORT: What are the results at your school? See NCEA data for every school in New Zealand

The proportion of students getting merit and excellence endorsements has also taken off, climbing by about 10 percentage points in five years at most levels.

Nearly half (44 per cent) of all of those who passed NCEA level one last year received a merit or excellence endorsement.

The internationally-recognised Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), on the other hand, showed falls in the achievement of fifteen year-old New Zealand students in reading, mathematics and science between 2009 and 2012.

James Cote, an expert on grade inflation at the University of Western Ontario, said the NCEA data "clearly indicates grade inflation has taken place".





And Dr Michael Johnston, a senior lecturer at Victoria University's School of Education and a former NZQA senior statistician said educational improvement "just doesn't happen that fast".

"If we're going to get anything approaching that, it would require huge resources to be put in. I don't really believe that reflects a genuine increase in learning."

Johnston said there had been a shift in the balance from external assessment - which usually consists of traditional exams - towards more internal assessment.

Because students typically performed better at internal assessment, they were now gaining more credits, which fuelled the rise in pass rates.

READ MORE:

* NCEA results: Full coverage

* Why are NCEA marks up while PISA marks are down?

* NCEA pass rates - by the numbers

Both Johnston and Cote raised concern about the impact of a Government target, set in 2012, for 85 per cent of 18-year-olds to be passing NCEA level two by 2017.

"In my opinion that was a ridiculous thing to say," Johnston said.

"It puts stupid political pressure on the sector to improve pass rates, irrespective of whether it improves learning and it undermines the integrity of standards-based assessment."

Cote said a similar target imposed in 2009 by the Government in the Canadian province of Ontario had damaged the school system there.

"Grade inflation at both the secondary and tertiary levels are 'creeping problems' around the world associated with the spread of mass education and the associated 'credentialism'," he said.

Feilding High School principal Roger Menzies, a vocal critic of NCEA, said the Government target was causing schools to turn to "shonky practices" to massage pass rates.

"Basically any credit will do. In some schools the NCEA certificate is not worth the paper it's written on because it's just a smorgasbord of easy credits," Menzies said.

But Education Minister Hekia Parata said NCEA had been been "profoundly democratising".

"The key difference between NCEA and the system it replaced is that it doesn't ration educational success," she said.

"While schools have traditionally focused on the kids who are going to pursue an academic pathway, they are now focused on all of the students at their school and on the level and set of credits those kids have."

Parata rejected any suggestion of grade inflation, saying results were moderated and checked against national and international trends.

"None of us are interested in having a qualification that doesn't have integrity and have quality as its characteristics. So no, there is no gaming going on, there is no inflation, the system has high integrity."

There was "still a strong cultural overhang that good quality education and good quality success was rationed and only so many people could get it," Parata said.

Former NZQA deputy chief executive Bali Haque, who was responsible for overseeing changes to NCEA from 2006 to 2012, said the increase in pass rates was a sign the system was working as it should be.

"I wouldn't call it grade inflation. I would say the system is picking up people who are being successful, whereas the system used to drop those people out," he said.

"We have a situation where more people are being more successful under NCEA because that's precisely what it was designed to do. You're entitling people to use vocational standards, you're encouraging a bit more internal assessment, you're expanding the range of things that people get credits for."

Haque agreed there could still be concerns about schools abusing the system by giving students "easy credits".

But the whole point of NCEA was that it "widened the net", so more people should be coming out with qualifications, he said.

"We are now in a position where schools are using it to acknowledge the learning of more students. And surely that is better than consigning half our students to failure."