The New Zealand Qualifications Authority is the New Zealand governmentCrown entity tasked with providing leadership in assessment and qualifications. It was established by the Education Act 1989. NZQA administers the National Certificates of Educational Achievement and the New Zealand Scholarship for secondary school students. It is also responsible for the quality assurance of non-university, tertiary training providers, the New Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications, and the New Zealand Qualifications Framework. It has further roles in evaluating overseas qualifications. In July 1990 it took over the work of the former Universities Entrance Board, the Ministry of Education's examinations, the Trades Certification Board and the Authority for Advanced Vocational Awards. NZQA is funded from the central government as well as fees, with the budget being about $70 million each year.
Governance
The Chief Executive, Grant Klinkum, and Board Chair, Murray Strong, were both appointed in 2014 and remain in place as of 2020. Poutasi had previously been the Director General of Health and worked in senior management roles across the health sector. Suckling is a governance specialist and heads a Board appointed by the Minister of Education that represents industry, communication, and education interests.
Māori strategy
NZQA's Māori strategy, Te Rautaki Māori 2012–2017, guides NZQA towards fulfilling its contribution to the government's education sector goal of Māori enjoying and achieving education success as Māori. The strategy was launched in June 2012 with the two main goals of Accelerated Māori learner success and advanced use of mātauranga Māori. NZQA has also produced two publications that support these goals – Enhancing Mātauranga Māori and Global Indigenous Knowledge and the earlier Conversations on Mātauranga Māori.
Review
A Targeted Review of Qualifications at levels 1–6 on New Zealand's ten-level qualifications framework commenced in 2008. The review aimed to ensure that New Zealand qualifications are useful and relevant to current and future learners, employers and other stakeholders. NZQA administers the New Zealand Qualifications Framework which was established in July 2010 as a result of the Targeted Review and is a comprehensive, up-to-date list of all non-university quality assured qualifications in New Zealand. Tertiary organisations are required to comply with statutory policies like the periodic external evaluation and review policy that provides an independent judgement of the educational performance and capability in self-assessment of all non-university tertiary education organisations. In 2011 NZQA introduced a new set of incentives and sanctions for providers, based on EER results, to bring higher performance to the sector. In May 2014 NZQA introduced ‘Innovation at NZQA’ to its website detailing the organisation's strategic thinking and ‘Future State’ programme of work around responding to a global and digital environment and trialling new processes and technologies.
Numbers
In 2013 more than 143,000 candidates took part in the annual NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship examinations administered by NZQA and achievement results were analysed in the Annual Report on NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship Data & Statistics released each year by NZQA. In 2016 more than 146,000 candidates sat NCEA and Scholarship exams. Because of the Kaikoura earthquake, the Scholarship exams were postponed. Students in the Hurunui and Kaikoura districts were unable to attend their exams as their schools were closed, meaning they had to use their derived grades.
Controversies
In 2005 the Authority's Chairman and CEO resigned after an investigation by the State Services Commission into the 2004 New Zealand Scholarship exams. In the physics exams only 39 out of 1,012 students who sat the exam received a scholarship while in English the result was 228 out of 587. This, and the state of the Authority as a whole at that time, was described by media as a "debacle".
Concerns over exams
In 2016, mistakes were made in the 2016 maths exam at every level. In 2017, many students and teachers were left perplexed by NCEA Level 1 MCAT externals, stating that they were "too difficult" and "not in the correct standard". NZQA stated that they had full confidence in their papers, but the minister has asked for a review.
