When NCEA was introduced in 2002, one of its goals was to improve the uptake and reputation of educational pathways leading to trades and industry.  It was assumed that assessing vocational skills for NCEA alongside subjects like mathematics and history would help to accomplish this.  

It didn’t work. In fact, the goal was doomed from the outset. Far from overcoming the lower status of vocational education, NCEA locked it in.  

In academic subjects students can achieve higher grades of merit and excellence. Assessment for vocational education only offers one passing grade – higher grades are not possible. This, among other factors, has perpetuated the lower status of vocational education. 

More than 20 years later, NCEA is being abolished. It will be replaced with the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) from 2029. Once again, improving the status of vocational education is amongst policymakers’ aims for the new qualification. 

NZCE will include vocational subjects, each with its own curriculum, to be written by Industry Skills Boards (ISBs). There will be eight ISBs, each responsible for managing work-based training in a broad area of industry – construction, for example.   

This is a very good start. Under NCEA, there were no vocational subjects, just disparate assessments of skills. Some schools have backed skills assessment with coherent programmes of learning; others have not.  

Having a proper curriculum for each vocational subject will help ensure they are coherent. ISBs will make sure they are relevant to industry. Many challenges remain, however. 

One lesson from NCEA is that academic and vocational subject results must be reported as similarly as possible. If academic subjects are reported on 100-point scales, vocational subjects should be too. If academic subjects can yield grades of A, B or C, so should vocational subjects. 

The hard part will be supporting schools to teach vocational subjects. They are set up to teach subjects like English, geography and science. They simply do not have enough resources to do justice to vocational subjects as well. 

Schools will need help to find work-integrated learning opportunities for their students. Dual enrolments at schools and polytechnics will need to become commonplace. ISBs will have to be in it for the long haul to help with these things. 

New Zealand desperately needs high-quality pathways for vocational education. But government agencies, tertiary institutions, industry bodies and employers will all need to step up. Schools will not be able to do it alone.