Outcomes option flawed

Both the much-maligned New Zealand National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), in its original form, bear many similarities with the new WA Certificate of Education.

All replace a number of different certificates with a “one size fits all” approach, all reduce the emphasis on external examinations and increase the role of school-based assessment and work completed outside the classroom and all impose a common form of assessment.

The flaws in the VCE are a matter of historical record. Not only were teachers and students drowned in an avalanche of unproductive work, ticking boxes, verifying student work and completing lengthy projects, but it was impossible to ensure consistent standards across the state.

Increasing project work completed outside the classroom meant that it was often impossible to verify that the work completed was indeed the student’s work. Increasing school-based assessment made it impossible to guarantee that an “A” in one school was the same as an “A” in another.

The attempted solution of teachers moderating work across schools was so expensive, time consuming and bureaucratic that teachers breathed a sigh of relief when the system returned to external examinations taking precedence over school-based assessment.

In Victoria it is also the case that the “one size fits all” approach using a common certificate failed and the government has recently introduced the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning that functions alongside the Victorian Certificate of Education.

Anyone familiar with New Zealand’s NCEA will know that the same criticisms that were levelled at the VCE are now being voiced against that certificate. Such is the disquiet that some schools, like Auckland Grammar, have introduced more rigorous certificates like the International Baccalaureate and the Cambridge Certificate.

It’s ironic that one of the Curriculum Council’s documents defends OBE by stating that it is used in the United Kingdom and the United States. Not only has the USA forsaken OBE, but those countries that do best in international tests like TIMSS and TIMSS-R ignore OBE in favour of the more traditional syllabus approach to curriculum development.