In 2020, Cabinet agreed to strengthen the literacy and numeracy requirements for NCEA. This included formally separating the literacy and numeracy requirements into a 20-credit co-requisite. From 2024, achievement of the co-requisite becomes mandatory for the awarding of an NCEA qualification at any level. This is a once-off requirement. Therefore, students who have already met this requirement or previous literacy and numeracy requirements prior to 2024 do not have to repeat this requirement. 

Six new dedicated standards for the co-requisite have been developed. They are set against a benchmark from the national curriculum (both The New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa). 

The co-requisite standards and their assessment reflect years of joint development and design between the Ministry and NZQA. 

Independent evaluation of the pilots in 2021 and 2022 was a key part of ensuring that changes to NCEA will support all ākonga in their NCEA journey. Recommendations and key themes were addressed to help prepare for implementation in 2024. 

On this page you will find information on Piloting the co-requisite and Actions we are taking to address key themes found through the pilot evaluations.

In 2021 we ran a small pilot of the new standards and assessments to build an initial understanding of how they work in practice. 

Read more on the 2021 mini-pilot and evaluation

In 2022 more than 200 schools, kura, and tertiary providers participated in a pilot year for the new literacy and numeracy, te reo matatini and pāngarau standards.

Two assessment events took place during the 2022 pilot, using what is known as Common Assessment Activities. The first event was broken into two, one for Aotearoa New Zealand from 27 June to 1 July 2022 and one for Realm Countries from 11 July to 15 July 2022. The second assessment event was held during 19 September to 23 September 2022.

Independent evaluation

Evaluation Associates carried out an independent external evaluation of the 2022 pilots.

The independent evaluation aimed to:

• understand how the standards and assessments are performing and identify any opportunities for refinement and improvement
• understand how pilot schools, kura, and organisations are building their capability and what is needed for implementation.

Evaluation Report One reflects findings from the first assessment activities in June/July 2022.

Evaluation Report Two is more detailed, with comparisons of all assessment activities in 2022 and uses survey information with ākonga, kaiako, and focus groups.

The report includes achievement data for each of the five pilot standards for the secondary school student cohort, and for different demographics within the cohort – gender, year-level, ethnicity, and socio-economic circumstances. Results are also presented specifically for four sub-groups within the pilot – English Language Learners (ELL), ākonga who used Special Assessment Conditions (SACs), students from Realm country schools and Tertiary students.

The report also includes psychometric analysis of the Common Assessment Activities carried out by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) that provides insights into statistical accuracy of the assessments.

[ File Resource ]

• Title: Evaluation Report One
• Description: NCEA Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau | Literacy and Numeracy Pilot Evaluation Report one October 2022
• File URL: https://ncea-live-3-storagestack-53q-assetstorages3bucket-2o21xte0r81u.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-02/Final%20Evaluation%20Associates%20Report%201%20Lit%20Num%20Te%20reo%20Matatini%20me%20te%20P%C4%81ngarau%20Pilot%20October%202022.pdf?VersionId=0dJkkDFF0zeBaD0NRCRZCYeoSeJGR8tO
• File Extension: pdf
• File Size: 2MB

[ File Resource ]

• Title: Evaluation Report Two
• Description: NCEA Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau | Literacy and Numeracy Pilot Evaluation Report Two March 2023
• File URL: https://ncea-live-3-storagestack-53q-assetstorages3bucket-2o21xte0r81u.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-02/NCEA%20Te%20Reo%20Matatini%20me%20te%20P%C4%81ngarau_Literacy%20Numeracy%20Pilot%20Evaluation-Report%20Two_March%202023.pdf?VersionId=JpGLjDPo_YP0LKnXIVzjT74KvTnwsNsb
• File Extension: pdf
• File Size: 4MB

The Ministry and NZQA are working through the advice contained in the 2022 evaluation reports. 

Below is a summary of actions we’re taking to address key themes:

Evaluation shows there’s a good correlation between using the online learning and assessment tool – e-asTTle – as a readiness indicator and assessment results for literacy and numeracy.

This means that when ākonga are identified as being ready for assessment they are more likely to achieve. The evaluation suggests that strengthening understanding of readiness indicators would support teachers to make decisions about the best time to assess ākonga. Understanding readiness can also help to inform teaching and learning approaches for individual ākonga.

We have worked to provide clearer information about readiness. This is a strong focus for our regional teams working directly with schools and kura. We will continue to share this information with schools and kura engaging in the assessments in 2024 and onwards. 

Read more: Are your learners ready? 

We acknowledge the e-asTTle items for te reo matatini me te pāngarau are less culturally responsive than other readiness tools. Teaching and learning resources such as Te Marautanga o Aotearoa and He Manu Tuhituhi can continue to be used to help determine ākonga readiness for these standards.

Digital assessment offers advantages because it enables technology-enhanced accessibility tools to be used by ākonga who need them. It also enables results to be returned to kaiako and ākonga more quickly than paper-based assessment. It is important that these advantages are balanced with barriers that exist. The evaluations told us there are barriers created by limited access to digital devices and that some ākonga prefer paper-based assessments.

During 2023, any school or kura concerned about managing external digital assessment can call for direct advice and support from the NZQA team supporting the transition year, including NZQA School Relationship Managers. This will include consideration of paper-based assessment where necessary.

At the same time, NZQA is carrying out work to understand the key barriers and opportunities within schools in implementing digital assessment. This work will continue to influence how digital assessment is rolled out.

Creating inclusive assessments is a high priority and is something that continues to be a focus for both the Ministry and NZQA. Since pilots were completed, NZQA has strengthened work to ensure a range of critical perspectives are involved in the development of assessments. This helps to ensure they are accessible for all learners. This will continue in 2023 and beyond.

As part of NZQA’s assessment development processes, new frameworks have been incorporated into the assessment design process for 2023 to ensure that assessments are designed to be culturally inclusive. Additional experts are being brought on to support the design process.

This means that contexts for questions in the assessments will be relevant to learners from a range of backgrounds, with a specific focus on Māori and Pacific cultural contexts. Questions are also designed so that even if a context is unfamiliar to a student, the underlying skill being assessed is clear. For example, there may be a small number of students for whom reading a bus timetable is an unfamiliar exercise. In this scenario, the underlying skill is reading a table.

We encourage the use of Curriculum Progress and Assessment Tools to understand where students are at in terms of their literacy and numeracy skills.

However, we heard from pilot participants in 2022 that some form of individualised feedback would support further teaching and learning by showing what areas students should focus on in the future. 

In 2023, NZQA trialled a process where students who did not achieve one or more standards received individual feedback reports for those standards, indicating outcomes where they may have done well and areas they need to focus further learning on before they attempt the assessment again.

In response to feedback from teachers in 2023, NZQA is developing a consolidated version of the personalised feedback reports for students to support teachers in developing their teaching and learning programmes. This will be available for the October/November 2023 assessments, and further developed for 2024. NZQA will use the feedback from students and teachers to refine the student and teacher reports for 2024.

The focus of resources provided by the Ministry is on teaching and learning materials. Introduction of the co-requisite is a key opportunity in shifting practice to support literacy, numeracy, te reo matatini and pāngarau as important skills across the curricula. 

While making past papers available can support the shift in practice, it is important that these are used as a resource in the wider context of teaching and learning. 

The 2022 and 2023 Common Assessment Activities (CAA) are currently available on NCEA.Education and unredacted versions can be accessed through NZQA teacher’s logins.

The assessments have been designed to reflect Level 4/5 of The New Zealand Curriculum (Phase 3 and 4 of Te Mātaiaho, the refreshed New Zealand Curriculum) and Level 4/5 of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. 

Evaluation Report Two includes psychometric analysis carried out by NZCER for the Literacy, Numeracy and Pāngarau assessments which shows that the assessments are performing well statistically against the outcomes of the standards. 

The evaluation has shown us that there is a relationship between e-asTTle scores and achievement in the Reading, Writing, and Numeracy assessments. This means the assessments of the levels of literacy and numeracy that we would expect. 

The pilot process has also shown where there may be areas for some improvements in the standards and assessments so that they can – as accurately as possible – reflect the skills and competencies of Level 4/5. The Ministry and NZQA are working together on some refinements to the standards as a result.

During the 2021 small-scale pilot of the NCEA co-requisite standards, several English-medium providers approached the Ministry about the possibility of using a portfolio to assess the literacy and numeracy standards.

The Ministry has explored using portfolio-based assessment as a ‘special assessment condition’ (SAC) or ‘alternative pathway’ for students who are otherwise eligible for SAC. This would be a tightly regulated option for a very small number of students with unique and complex needs. We have commissioned a literature review of portfolio-based assessment from a team of assessment and education experts at Massey University to support final decision-making on the availability of portfolio assessments to students completing the literacy and numeracy co-requisite unit standards.

Based on the findings in this report and the Ministry’s and NZQA’s own prior analysis of the risks and benefits of portfolios, both agencies have agreed not to implement this form of assessment for the literacy and numeracy co-requisite unit standards.

[ File Resource ]

• Title: Assessment by portfolio - January 2023
• Description: Assessment by portfolio - achievement standards and new Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau | Literacy & Numeracy co-requisite
• File URL: https://ncea-live-3-storagestack-53q-assetstorages3bucket-2o21xte0r81u.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-10/Assessment%20by%20Portfolio%20-%20January%202023.pdf?VersionId=BciLBToPjB5KDlGBYRnJOn8i9rENg073
• File Extension: pdf
• File Size: 760KB