New Zealand / Education

NZQA investigates Te Wānanga o Aotearoa

08:46 am on 14 May 2018

Independent assessors are checking the marks of 2050 students at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and enrolments in some courses have stopped following a Qualifications Authority investigation.

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NZQA deputy Chief executive of quality assurance Grant Klinkum said it had imposed conditions with the wānanga's agreement after monitoring raised concerns about its assessment decisions.

He said the wānanga would not enrol any new students in courses involving standards in Core Skills, Numeracy or Physical Education and an independent assessor would verify the wānanga's assessment decisions for about 1300 students.

The Qualifications Authority would also check the marking of Computing standards in four New Zealand certificate programmes, with about 750 students.

The authority refused to provide copies of moderation or risk reports that led to the action on the grounds that it was still an active quality assurance case.

The statutory actions came nearly a year after the authority ordered the wānanga to retain assessments in Core Skills standards and send a sample to the authority for moderation. At that time it also stopped the wānanga from enrolling new students in two certificates because of problems with moderation.

Te Wānanga o Aotearoa deputy chief executive Nepia Winiata said nine level 1-4 certificate courses were involved and six of those would be discontinued once the current cohort had completed them.

He said the wānanga was supporting the NZQA process and apologised to the affected students.

"We regret that this may mean a delay for some of our current tauira (students) receiving their confirmed results. Unfortunately, validation is necessary," Mr

Winiata said.

He said the students would have the opportunity for reassessment if the outcome of the external moderation deemed it necessary.

Mr Winiata said the wānanga was changing the way it conducted assessments, was giving additional training to its kaiako, and had developed an online portal for assessments.