And Mallard should go also
August 29th, 2004 at 12:00 pm by David FarrarIf Maharey should be sacked for wasting $250 million on useless community education courses, Mallard should join him for not stopping NCEA descending into a laughing stock.
The SST (they have had a good week) again has the goods.
You can get NCEA credits for:
* knowing about PMS
* responding to grief in others
* managing personal wellness
* participating in an “informal meeting” with the discussion topic: “Uncle Bob’s 50th party”
Now I could understand giving credits for being able to accurately judge when someone is suffering from PMS, and thus avoiding them for a few days (a useful life survival skill), but merely for knowing about PMS is like giving credit for merely knowing about war!
No tag for this post.
August 29th, 2004 at 3:27 pm
And while we are at it, Don the “leader” of the opposition Brash, should go for receiving a $195,000 salary but seldom attending Parliament.
Vote:August 29th, 2004 at 4:26 pm
And Helen should go for refusing every invitation she has had to debate the Leader of the Opposition on TV or radio.
But Rowan does your lack of even a semblance of a defence of Maharey and Mallard mean you know when not to defend the indefensible?
Vote:August 29th, 2004 at 4:32 pm
No no David. I
Vote:August 29th, 2004 at 4:37 pm
You are being absurd by suggesting that the measure of someone as PM is their ability to out shout the hysterical squarks of the Labour benches.
The reasons Brash has had what to date must be considered the most sucessful political career in NZ’s history (No 3 as a brand new MP, Leadcer in 18 months, biggest veer shift in polling history) is because he isn’t sene as a typical politican who is more interested in trading insults, than actually helping NZ.
Vote:August 29th, 2004 at 5:12 pm
Who gives a tossers turd about debates in parliament anyway? Momentary sport for a few self opiniated jounos, that’s about all. (and an opportunity for Parekura to have a mohi) Just leave Little Donny alone to talk to the people who really count. The voters themselves. That’s how Clinton beat the pricks in the media, isn’t it?
Vote:August 29th, 2004 at 7:02 pm
Dr Brash isn’t in the House as often as some (most) other MPs. He has better things to do.
But I have another point: I’ve been to the public galleries quite a lot lately, and not just for question times. It seems to me that the journalists have a warped impression as to what goes on there since they only ever attend question time, general debates, and urgency sessions. In fact, about two thirds of them leave at the end of question time, even if there’s a good debate afterwards.
Consequently, some hardworking MPs are forgotten because they don’t concentrate their energies into the times that fit best into narcissistic press gallery hounds’ schedules. Ahem, Mr Milne. Also, the media completely misses the fits of cooperation that MPs lapse into when they think that nobody’s looking.
It’s not a big deal or anything, it’s just that the press do a lot to perpetuate stereotypes about MPs that aren’t entirely fair.
Also, Mallard must go.
Cheers.
Vote:August 30th, 2004 at 1:14 am
I\’ve been following qualification reform since the botched experiment of unit standards in the 1990s. I can\’t say that the current problems at all surprising.
I think there was a severe error in judgement made in pressing ahead with the reforms when cleary there wasn\’t stakeholder buy in. It was clear that a new qualification system to replace the mish mash of school leaver quals we had prior to NCEA was needed, but the implmentation of this by both NZQA and MoE echoes those employed by Rodger Douglas. Implment first, ask questions later. There were warning signs were there if you look over back over the policy documents coming out of the agencies in the 1990s and I think that those two agencies used that period of instabilty during the run up to the 1999 election as a window of oppourtuntiy to present the system as a fait accompli to any incoming government after the 1999 election.
I\’m no fan of the NECA, but the system could have worked and I have to say I\’m totally disappointed by lack of professionalism that teachers and adminstrators up at NZQA have demonstrated to this qualification is truely astounding.
Just as I expect to go to a doctor and get an accurate diagnosis for my health so too do I expect a teacher to be able to accuratly assess a student\’s progress. If they stuff up they should be deregistered. So far I\’ve seen resignations but has anyone actually be struck off for this? They should be. At the moment I have little faith in the teachers council should do this and I\’m wondering whether ERO\’s role should be expanded to this also.
I have no problem with internal assessment. It was present under the old system and there seemed to be to little concern with the validty. Authentic assessment is a highly useful tool when it\’s used correctly and I think that those who use qualifications would benefit greatly from having access to this information. But has to valid and comprable from school to school.
The system of having purely external tests like in the Korean system I work in at present merely produces students capable of passing tests and little else. I have students who can identify grammar problems from a multiple choice test that most tertiary students in New Zealand would have problems with, yet they struggle to come up with answer to \’How are you today?\’ that doesn\’t deviate from the script they learnt for a test.
However is seems to me that qualification reform needs to go hand in hand with curriculum reform. As it seems logical to me that first we have to decide what our students should know, second that we should assess if they know it, and third that this assessment is valid. I think seperating out qualifications from curriculum into two seperate agencies was a mistake. Of tomorrows schools and that we really need to go back to the drawing board on this part of education policy.
Damn this would be a damn interesting thesis topic…
Vote:August 30th, 2004 at 9:38 am
Labour education policy: -
NCEA is a great forward thinking idea.
Children must attend the school of the governments choice – no matter that many children express their frustration about being incarcerated by disrupting the educational program and staff are not empowered to do anything about it. If some children attempt to escape by committing acts of intimidation and violence, just tell the school to avoid expulsions so that those kids find they have to increase their brutality in order to achieve their objective.
National education policy: -
NCEA is a great forward thinking idea which just wasn
Vote:August 30th, 2004 at 1:17 pm
I thought Basket Weaving 101 was as mad as it got. Of course there is no useful purpose in “managing personal wellness”, when (or better still, if) they get jobs, there is all that sick leave to be had.
Vote: