Wait over as exam results posted online

Logan Park High School NCEA level 3 candidates (from left) Georgina O'Reilly (18), Rhiannon...
Logan Park High School NCEA level 3 candidates (from left) Georgina O'Reilly (18), Rhiannon Prosser (17), Patrick Dawson (18) and Eve Kennedy (18) check their NCEA results online using free WiFi in the Octagon yesterday. Photo by Jane Dawber.
The nervous wait is over for more than 6350 NCEA and 439 New Zealand Scholarship candidates in the Otago region, now that examination results have been posted online.

For the first time, result notices were made available online yesterday, instead of being mailed.

More than 143,000 secondary school pupils from throughout New Zealand submitted 1.58 million entries across 373 standards during the 2011 NCEA external examinations.

Among those receiving results yesterday was Logan Park High School NCEA level 3 candidate Patrick Dawson, who was pleased with his results.

"It's a mixed bag. There are some surprising results and some pretty good results."

Fellow classmate Eve Kennedy said her results were "mostly good", but there was a general consensus from the people she had spoken to, that the marks this year appeared to be lower than they had expected.

"I'm not sure why that is."

New Zealand Qualifications Authority chief executive Karen Poutasi said the 2011 results were the first to include course endorsement, which recognises pupils' high achievement in individual courses.

The 2011 NCEA examination results also included the processing of applications for Earthquake Impaired Derived Grades (EIDG) from pupils affected by the Christchurch earthquakes, she said.

For the EIDG to be applied, a pupil had to attend their external examinations and make a realistic attempt at answering the questions.

If this process was followed, the pupil would receive the better of their exam result, or the derived grade submitted by the school on the basis of performance through the year.

Dr Poutasi said while the majority of eligible pupils met these requirements, a small number of pupils did not make a realistic attempt to answer the examination questions and were deemed not to have met the eligibility.

An appeals process would be available for these affected pupils, in addition to NZQA's standard process for reviews and reconsiderations, she said.

Miss Kennedy was pleased with the NZQA's decision to post results online this year.

She said they were quick and easy to check, especially for those candidates who were still away from home on holiday, and the process was much better for the environment.

"It's a huge waste of paper when they post results out in the mail," she said.

School result summaries and records of achievement are available on request, and marked examination papers will be returned to candidates from January 24.

Following the return of marked papers, pupils would have until February 17, to apply for EIDG appeals,reviews and reconsiderations, Dr Poutasi said.

- john.lewis@odt.co.nz

 

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