Plus: Everything is fine for Luxon apart from the butter, Trump, unemployment, netball, etc.
Twenty-three years after its introduction, the National Certificate of Educational Achievement is headed for the shredder, with an overhaul of the qualification system laid out by Erica Stanford, the minister for education, on Monday. The changes include a greater emphasis on external assessment and core subjects of maths and English, a pair of new certificate programmes for years 12 and 13, and the resurgence of an A-E letter grade system.
In a new episode of the Spinoff politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime, Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire discuss what looks like a return to something more like the system they experienced back in the olden times. Does this look like the right balance between loosey-goosey and rigid one-size-fits-all-ness? Is six weeks really sufficient time to get feedback from the sector, students and parents? And why not bring back third to seventh form, while we’re at it?
Also on the podcast this week: is the removal of voting rights for those who enrol in the fortnight before an election a necessary measure to limit the “strain on the system”, a welcome kick up the backside for the dropkicks, dipshits and deadbeats of New Zealand (eg Ben Thomas) or a troubling disenfranchisement of a particular group of people.
Plus: Christopher Luxon took a short and sharp mindset into the National Party conference on the weekend. He arrived in Christchurch amid a blur of bleak headlines, focused mostly on an economic mood epitomised by butter, netball crowds, abrupt Trump tariffs, unemployment numbers, and all that. On the cost of living and the economy more broadly, just how is the getting back on track going?
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