A high school principal is asking the prime minister to make changes to the NCEA system this year.
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The new school term is set to begin on Wednesday in a physical distance capacity.
To achieve that, the government and Ministry of Education has spent $88 million on setting up online remote learning for students and teachers, as well as educational broadcasts on two of New Zealand's television channels. Hard copy packs are also being sent to families that cannot access the internet.
Kaipara College principal Steve McCraken wants the number of credits needed for each level to be reduced, and Level 1 suspended altogether.
NCEA Level 1 is already optional for schools and a number of changes were made to it prior to the Covid-19 lockdown.
McCracken told Morning Report his school has found there is severe stress and anxiety among students.
"This Covid-19 lockdown has been massively disruptive to teaching and learning within all secondary schools.
"In the realms that I operate in, have been discussing whether Level 1 would be a valid qualification in 2020. That doesn't mean to say that it's going to continue all the way through for future years, but it's something that some schools are considering in the near future."
McCracken sent a letter to the prime minister, asking for changes to the NCEA structure.
"As I said in my letter to the prime minister, that the phone calls we've made last week have outlined that there's a severe stress and anxiety around NCEA... the qualifications for year 12s and 13s in particular, what that's going to look like when they move into post secondary school education."
McCracken said the Ministry of Education had done a good job getting the term up and running for Wednesday onwards.
"But there's still going to be those that do not have access to a variety of tools to continue their education.
"Then they do have the TV channels, which is a fantastic initiative and something I really applaud but we're still missing that face-to-face or that connection from teacher to student."
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McCracken said when online learning starts tomorrow, there will be huge inequity issues between different students and families.
"So it's important that each school and each individual is catered for.
"And one thing that we're kind of suggesting is that each family have a meeting bubble every morning and plan out their day so that they can communicate and within that is the sharing of devices or sharing of resource or actually just being present as a family to help our learners out would be advantageous."
Education Secretary Iona Holsted told Nine to Noon that schools already have the option to drop NCEA Level 1 if they think it will be more beneficial for their students.
"In terms of NCEA more generally, what we've done is look back at what the impact of the Christchurch earthquakes was on NCEA attainment in Canterbury and schools were closed at that stage for at least four weeks and in some cases six to eight weeks. We also had students who were displaced in their homes and there was a lot less online learning and there was ongoing trauma with the shakes, and actually the attainment of NCEA in Canterbury was not affected by that.
"While there was some slight drops in NCEA Level 3, the trend was upwards in NCEA Level 2. So what that tells us is the relationship between these sorts of events and actual attainment doesn't seem to be very high. I think our young people are more resilient than sometimes we think, obviously if students are feeling stressed they need to be cared for, the well-being of our young people is really important under any circumstances, particularly now."
Holsted confirmed that if the level 4 lockdown is lifted once the four-week period is up, then some students could return to school on 29 April at the earliest.
