In 2008 the percentages were:
Maori 44.4
Pacific 55.3
All 66.5
In 2013 the percentages were:
Maori 58.6
Pacific 71.8
All 76.8
The percentage increase over the 5 years was:
Maori 32 %
Pacific 30 %
All 15%
That's good news for Maori and if the increase continues at the same rate, the catch up will eventually happen. But you have to wonder why the difference between Maori and Pacific NCEA achievement is so big. The anomalies between Maori and Pacific continue to fascinate me not least because Pacific people are statistically poorer than Maori but doing better on almost all social indicator scales. (Not to mention poor Asians.)
Their better results are a fly in the ointment for those who persistently blame poverty for poor educational achievements etc.
Update
Thought I'd have a look for comparable data for the 5 years pre- 2008. Looks like equivalent isn't available (the above measurement is a product of Better Public Service goals).
Nevertheless the solidly improving trend for Maori and Pacific started around 2005.
Figure 1.6: School Leavers with a University Entrance Standard or a Higher Qualification by Ethnic Group, 1993-2007
(I've also blogged about the other view, which I have sympathy for, that NCEA is "dumbing down" pupils. More are achieving thanks to lower goal posts.)
Update
A reader asked,"Your earlier graph is also interesting because back then the Maori and Pacifika numbers were almost the same. Now they are very different. So it looks like Pacifika went through a major change in the last few years. Is that correct?"
My second graph depicts UE or higher achieved, not the lower NCEA level 2. So to continue the same graph comparing apples with apples, the gap between Maori and Pacific seems to have widened very slightly. But we can now look back twenty years and see the achievement for both Maori and Pacific was flat until around 2002-3. One in ten Pacific and fewer than one in ten Maori were achieving UE. What happened then? NCEA. Now a third of Pacific and over a quarter of Maori students are achieving UE
Figure 2: Percentage of school leavers with university entrance standard, by ethnic group (2009 to 2012)
3 comments:
Your earlier graph is also interesting because back then the Maori and Pacifika numbers were almost the same. Now they are very different. So it looks like Pacifika went through a major change in the last few years. Is that correct?
I once taught at a school in Ontario that had as its motto 'success for every student' and as it was a basic grade school every pupil did indeed enjoy success. If a pupil slept at the back of the class and handed nothing in, did no work at all, they were still able to succeed and could earn a 1/4 credit simply for being there. My point is simply that you can achieve a growth in the number of students achieving if you consistently lower the standard and we have no idea if this is happening or not. I also wonder how many of the levels achieved are single grades in Maori.
A reader sent through this link to an article from The Listener which takes an indepth look at what's going on:
http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/education/all-shall-pass
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