national curriculum problems

[Deb in NZ]

For everyone who thinks a national curriculum is the answer to America's education challenges, don't look at what New Zealand is currently using as a model.

 

I checked ds#1's Record of Achievement (RoA) on-line today. A RoA is like a transcript of what a student has achieved from age 16+, both in highschool & beyond. I was double checking that the polytech had corrected their typo that had granted ds#1 credits in Beauty: hair & skin instead of the Mechanical Engineering: welding credits he had earned :001_huh: That mistake was corrected & I was surprised to see that he has been presented with NCEA 2 & NCEA 3 certificates! NCEA 1-3 roughly corresponds to the last 3 years of highschool (levels 1-3). A student needs to earn 80 credits to achieve each level, but s/he doesn't need to start with NCEA 1, if s/he is able to successfully pass higher level standards. Only NCEA 1 has literacy & numeracy requirements. For those students who want to go to university, they must achieve UE (univeristy entrance) as well that does have literacy & numeracy requirements. ds#1 earned 93 unit standards in his welding course July-November last year. Most of the credits were level 3 & 4. BUT he has yet to pass any English unit standards. He was told last year at polytech that he is most likely dyslexic, which I do agree with as he didn't catch on to reading until age 12 & writing continues to be a daily challenge.

 

I am happy that ds#1 can put NCEA 2 & 3 on his CV, but it doesn't give me confidence in a system that makes it look someone has passed secondary education without ever passing any literacy standards! My goal at home has always been to prepare our dc to be successful in the career path they have chosen to follow, so the piece of paper from the gov't doesn't mean much to us. In this case I find it very misleading.