1 Teachers Cannot Assess More Than a Proportion of Their Students' Work for Public Certification

Black notes that the discussion re inclusion of both external and internal assessment rests on the issue of workload alone. He does not dispute the decision or the balance, but does question why the issues of public credibility and teacher capability were not equally canvassed in the discussion.

The argument put forward is premised on the importance of the use of formative assessment as an integral part of the teaching process, and that this should provide sufficient information to report on student achievement. However, concerns are raised that where teachers' formative assessment practices are weak, their practices in internal assessment may also be weak.

The focus of the professional development programme put in place to support the NCEA is teacher capability at designing conducting and marking assessment tasks for the internally assessed achievement standards. In addition the two elements of the national moderation system - the assessment audit, and the sample check marking have been developed to explicitly address this issue. The prospect raised by Black's comments is of positive effects on learning as teacher assessment practices improve.