Opinion: The real reason so many kids failed NCEA Level 1 this year – Peter Wills

These tests came about from employers in the late 2010s reporting that NCEA Level 1 graduates couldn’t always do the basics like read, write, and solve simple maths problems.

To ensure all school leavers were up to scratch with the basics, NZQA introduced mumeracy, reading and writing tests called Common Assessment Activities or CAAs. To leave school with an NCEA qualification, students must pass the CAAs. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, the United States, and Australia all have tests like this.

The CAAs were trialled over the last few years and were used across the country in 2024.

You can sit the CAAs as many times as you like but there are only two slots each year, in late May and early September.

If you pass the Numeracy CAA, we are confident you will leave school with the maths skills you need for the real world. Skills like being able to figure out the size of materials for a DIY project, picking the cheapest option at the grocery store, or spotting fake graphs while on social media.

Here are some questions from the most recent numeracy CAA if you want to test yourself:

New Zealand has well-documented woes with literacy but less well known is meagre maths ability.

Less than half of students sitting the Numeracy CAA last September passed, while the results for May were a little better, with 56% passing.

These numeracy CAA results are a key driver of the increased failure rate for NCEA Level 1.

Passing the CAAs is important because we want all children to leave school being able to read, write and do maths. Passing is also important because if you can’t pass the CAAs, you can’t leave high school with a qualification, not even NCEA Level 1.

According to an Education Counts Report, if you leave school without a qualification, you earn an average of $18K a year.

READ MORE: How does your school rate? Latest NCEA, University Entrance results at every college ranked

Additionally, 40% of those without NCEA Level 1 didn’t get a job or enter training in the first 7 years of leaving school. Just by passing NCEA Level 1, on average a student earns $12K more a year and is significantly more likely to get a job or enter training.

Getting students to pass the CAAs is therefore a top priority for schools across New Zealand.

Worryingly (and predictably), socioeconomic status and ethnicity are associated with passing the CAAs with 74% of kids from wealthy communities passing numeracy, compared to 52.2% from moderately wealthy communities, and 28.3% from poor communities.

Pākehā students had a 63% pass rate while Māori students had a 38.1% pass rate and Pasifika students had a pass rate of just 30.2%. If these results continue, our less wealthy Māori and Pasifika children will be less likely to leave high school with a qualification, further widening already present gaps in New Zealand today.

The point of these standards was to make sure high school leavers are well-rounded, diligent individuals who are an asset to our communities. Maths teachers are adamant that the standard not be lowered to compensate for low pass rates. The numeracy CAA seems to be fair and we should expect students to pass this before they leave school.

Chronic underinvestment over the last 20 years may be behind our meagre maths. To change this, we need to invest longer than a single political cycle.

We’ve already seen some positive buzz in the Beehive with the introduction of structured literacy in Years 1-3.

We’ve also seen $2.5 million to support 160 schools to improve their teaching of teens who failed these tests. This is a great start to tackling a complex problem which will require much more money to fix.

Perhaps we could invest again in subject specialists, where experienced maths teachers are given part of their time to support excellent maths teaching in their region.

Perhaps a role in every school to support the excellent teaching of numeracy. Some schools have already funded this out of their increasingly stretched operations grants.

Perhaps we could see more teacher aides, more learning support funding, or funding for our education system in general, which gets 25% less than the OECD average.

Most students first sit the CAAs in Year 10. This means it will be around seven years before the investments made from structured literacy make a difference to our NCEA results.

With students returning over the next few days, maths teachers will be looking for some numeracy solutions. If this doesn’t happen in 2025, I look forward to New Zealand’s excellent and equitable numeracy results in 2032.

Answers:

Q1 (2D in Numeracy Term 3 2024): The correct answer is (iv).

Q2 (5D in Numeracy Term 3 2024: The correct answer is $3.30.

$182.00+$40.50+$33.70+$21.00=$277.20

$277.20 ÷84 =$3.30

Q3 (2F in Numeracy Term 3 2024): You can answer either yes or no. The correct answer will be backed up using numbers on the graph e.g.

Yes. In 2002, the percentage of New Zealanders buying from op shops was around 18% while in 2022 it was more like 53%. Because 3×18% = 54%3×18% = 54%, and 54% is close to 53% we can say this claim is correct.

OR

No. In 2002, the percentage of New Zealanders buying from op shops was around 18% while in 2022 it was more like 53%. Because 3×18% = 54%3×18% = 54%, and 54% and 53% are different, the claim is not quite correct.

Peter Wills is a Year 6 maths and statistics teacher working in Hawke’s Bay.