NCEA Report by Professor Paul Black 2000
Professor Paul Black of King's College, London, was invited to write a report on the proposals for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement in 2000. This page provides a summary and analysis of Professor Black's report, and the report itself is available for download below.
5 Serving The Broader Aims of Education
The paper points out the limits of a qualifications system within the broader intent of the outcomes of education.
A qualification is a utilitarian device: it signals to the world something of what the world may want to know about the holder. A person's qualification is most likely to be used for selection purposes by a potential employer or client, or an institution of further education. It is important to reconfirm that, while the policy intent is to provide a richer profile of student achievement, a qualification can only form one element of the wider profile which a school provides for its students.
The third section of the report focuses on technical issues.