'Utter chaos': NCEA digital exam outage leaves schools scrambling for fallback plans

On Thursday morning, Level 2 English students across New Zealand sat down to their NCEA digital exam at 9.30am. Soon after, many found their work had vanished, and others could not log on at all. For teachers watching in classrooms, it turned into what Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie called "utter chaos."

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority later said its digital exam platform had "experienced issues" moving student responses from the exam platform to the marking platform. The problem affected thousands of students. By 10.35am, about an hour after the exams began, NZQA said it had been resolved.

That hour was long enough for schools to be left on their own. Abercrombie told Breakfast that schools had to devise their own responses and make decisions "before they even had the information." Some, he said, were "furiously trying to photocopy in every photocopier in the school" to produce paper copies of the exam. Others sent students home, in some cases before NZQA had released any real information. One teacher told him they were learning more from NZQA's Facebook page than from anything the schools were being told directly. "Just sort of hoping it was the best decision," he said of the choices schools made.

Abercrombie said the failure raises "serious questions." He asked why New Zealand sticks with a vendor that, at the moment, "can't seem to manage the system," and what the next steps are. He also pointed to a wider issue, the push for "digital first" assessment. He asked whether students, teachers and schools actually want it, saying there seemed to be an assumption that they do. A qualification system, he said, has to reliably show what a young person can do.

NZQA chief executive Christian Hawkesby apologised to students and parents while defending the system. He said NZQA partners with one of the world's largest providers of digital exams, and that it worked with that provider to identify the fault, fix it and restore the platform. He said the platform was stable and worked during Thursday afternoon's exams.

For affected students, Hawkesby said grades will be based on the higher of their result in the exam itself or in their practice exam. NZQA will also work closely with schools on what other evidence can be used, and will examine overall results against previous years to judge whether adjustments are needed. He said digital exams bring advantages, including faster marking and quicker results, and that NZQA receives a lot of support for that direction.

Caretaker Education Minister Erica Stanford said the disruption would have been "incredibly frustrating and stressful" for students, and that her main concern is that they are treated fairly and not disadvantaged. She said she had been assured a plan was in place to ensure no student was disadvantaged. She also said she had made her disappointment and frustration very clear to NZQA and directed it to develop a clear plan of action so this does not happen again. "Students have been badly let down," she said. Students and parents also told 1News of their anger, upset and annoyance.

Next week's Level 1 English exam is the last large-scale digital assessment of the year. Hawkesby said all schools will have full paper contingency for it, which he hopes will put students' minds at rest. The questions about the vendor, and about whether digital-first assessment should continue, remain open.