Heres a quick rundown of NCEA for those of you who don't know.
Each subject has a list of standards each allocated a number of "credits" that count toward the overall qualification.
There are internally and externally assesed standards (in reference to the school), and there are also unit standards and achievement standards. Unit standards can either be "achieved" or "not achieved" however achievement standards can be "not achieved", "achieved", "achieved with merit" and "achieved with excellence". To make things worse each individual standard has a certain amount of "achieved", "merit" or "excellence" questions that need to be correct to recieve that grade, the amount changes from paper to paper. Each paper is worth around 3-4 credits.
To get Level One you need 80 level one credits and atleast 8 in literacy and 8 in numeracy.
To get Level Two you need atleast 60 credits from level 2 or higher and 20 can be carried forward from level 1.
To get Level Three you need atleast 60 credits from level 3 or higher and 20 can be carried forward from level 2.
Each level can be endorsed with merit or excellence if you get 50 credits with merit or excellence.
My current subjects at year 12 (form 6) Level 2 are:
- English (which I thoroughly despise but am forced to take)
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Computer Studies
- Level 3 Computer Programming
- Cambridge Math (As)
In each of my courses bar math (I am sitting an international exam through the university of cambridge) give me oppurtunity for about 20 credits, I have done no work in english at all because of my opposal to being forced to learn literature.
The trouble is both of my computer courses are unit standards only, there is no achievement standards in all of NCEA for computer courses. There is however achievement standards in Physical Education. So unless I get merit or excellence in all my other subjects in all the papers I won't get an endorsement.
In summary in our national secondary education qualification you can be deemed excellent for running around a field fast but not if you have an aptitude for computing!
Trusted
