I read that nearly a third of students who would have passed NCEA Level 2 under the current system will struggle under the new one. 

BERL have done research that suggests 15,000 students have followed pathways that may be harder to replicate. 

I'm not sure what the point of this research is. 

They also claim the changes come at a cost of $50 million, most of which goes into relief teachers to cover staff working on changes. 

The narrative is sort of presented as one of potential trouble, or a bleak future for kids that won't cope. 

Here is what I know as a parent of five, who all dealt with NCEA at various levels – it’s a joke. Not all of it, but a lot of it. 

The sad truth is that if 15,000 are not going to be able to carry on the way they were under this new system, I say not a moment too soon. 

NCEA was, without putting too fine a point on it, a piss-take. 

On paper the idea you could pick from a myriad of nice-to-haves, anything you want that didn’t need to be relevant to the real world or your chances at a job, was fun. You could piece together your eclectic selection of hobby topics and before you knew it, you had your credits. 

This was a farce. In theory it's fantastic. In reality it was a rort to game the system. 

When BERL say replicate the old system, this is what they mean; subjects no one cares about, or is getting work in, or subjects you may be interested in as a night class at polytech. None of it was designed to set you up for life. 

It was designed to produce a factory of success stories so schools could say look at our pass rate. 

You weren't passing anything of note. 

So the next problem is when students turn up to real subjects, with real expectations, and they struggle. That will show up in figures. 

It will show up in fails. Oh, I used that word that can't be used in education – "fail", "did not achieve", "not passed". 

But that is how countries who succeed do it. They educate their kids in real-world subjects at real-world rates because, guess what, they are going out into the real world. 

Our foray into educational fantasy was always going to end in tears. Between Covid and 25 years of NCEA we have sold a generation of kids short, if not down the river. 

Sure, lots did fine. But that’s always the way. 

Good kids never fail. It's the rest who didn’t know better, or who took the mickey, that will, and are, paying the price.