The New Zealand government鈥檚 plan to purchase a for school children between Year 3 and 10 has caught .
The tool would essentially be a return to a form of national standards, a policy introduced in .
Under this policy, children were compared against the level of achievement expected for their age and time at school. The goal was to improve results across the education system.
The after there was little improvement in international testing results and . The survey of teachers and principals found just 16% of respondents said the standardised testing had a positive impact.
The planned introduction of a new standardised assessment tool is concerning for a number of reasons 鈥� particularly when it comes to long-term consequences for schools and student learning.
But what has also raised the hackles of many in education is how the tender process for the new tool happened without warning. Here is what parents, schools and the public should know about the background to this debate.
A narrowing curriculum
There is plenty of research 鈥� from and 鈥� highlighting the negative consequences of standardised testing in education.
Standardised assessment can, for example, lead to schools being ranked against each other according to their achievement data. A low ranking could jeopardise a school鈥檚 reputation and therefore the number of enrolments and subsequent funding they receive.
In this high-stakes environment, teachers can be pressured to focus on assessed subjects, often to the detriment of the broader curriculum. While the curriculum in New Zealand has already under the government鈥檚 鈥溾�� policy, a standardised assessment could further exacerbate this trend.
Teachers may also be inclined to 鈥渢each to the test鈥� and employ rote learning strategies, where children are encouraged to memorise the correct answers. While this may result in high test scores, it is questionable whether deeper learning will occur.
Focusing on assessment can also be detrimental to children鈥檚 , particularly when they are labelled according to their level of achievement.
Finally, while standardised tests might promise an 鈥渆asy fix鈥� to improve educational outcomes, they do not address the deeper socioeconomic disparities which continue to .
A lack of consultation
This shift back towards a national testing standard is happening . Instead, the plan to use one standardised assessment tool only became evident when the was released.
But the introduction of a standardised test also doesn鈥檛 fit with the government鈥檚 previous public statements on testing.
In 2024, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced plans to to assess students. These tools were selected specifically to prevent comparison across schools because they were so .
At the time,
It鈥檚 not our intention to pit schools against each other. This data is for parents to know how their kids are going, teachers to inform practice, and as a system to know how we鈥檙e tracking.
But according to later the same year, the government already had a plan to rely on a single standardised assessment tool that could produce comparable data.
Control from afar
While the Ministry of Education says this new standardised assessment tool 鈥溾��, there are reasons to be sceptical.
Standardised assessment can be used by the government to control what teachers do in the classroom and provide data to . This resource allocation strategy, however, can leave some schools .
Principals and teachers can also be held accountable for student achievement, while larger contextual factors, such as socioeconomic inequalities, are ignored. This can ultimately lead to educators being .
Regardless of who wins the tender for the new assessment tool, New Zealand鈥檚 recent experience with standardised testing didn鈥檛 achieve what was promised. Returning to national standards 鈥� either in name or just in spirit 鈥� should raise alarms for everyone.
, Teaching Fellow, Te Kura Toi Tangata 鈥� School of Education, and , Senior Lecturer, Te Kura Toi Tangata 鈥� School of Education,
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