Petition Ammendments

Kia Ora, Hope you're staying safe for your exams among this distressing week! Firstly, we've gained some more media attention by the Auckland radio station 95bfm (link to their podcast is below) who interviewed Kristine Kilkelly on NZQA's handling of exams following the severe 7.8 earthquake that rocked New Zealand on Monday morning. Some aspects of our petition have been adhered to as part of the emergency derived grade process for NZQA, however no formal apology has been issued to students and their whanau who were affected by NZQA's handling of the incident. Little action has taken place on NZQA's part regarding the injustice that students across the country faced following the earthquake, therefore the petition has now been addressed to Dr. Karen Poutasi (Chief Executive of NZQA) and Hekia Parata (Minister of Education) as well as Kristine Kilkelly. We hope that extra pressure will be put on these individuals so that they can enforce and support some of the policies outlined in our petition. In addition to the six original policies on the petition, an additional two policies have been added, both of which have a focus on the long term. These policies are: (7) From no later than 2017 onwards, NZQA should implement a minimum of two 'emergency exam days' at the end of the annual external exam period in order to prevent the widespread injustice that students endured this year. Students should have a choice of sitting the exam on the 'emergency exam date' or accepting a derived grade. (8) NZQA should conduct a review on the procedures that they undertook following the 7.8 earthquake and have any findings from this review made available to the public. This review should seek input from those employed by NZQA as well as students, teachers, parents, and the general public. NZQA should use findings from this review to outline any issues from their mishandling of this year's exams and draft a policy stating their procedures in the case that a disaster occurs again. The draft policy should be made available to the public by NZQA to seek feedback on it prior to drafting a final policy that NZQA will also make available to the public to view; this is to enable students, schools, and parents to have more clarity in the event that another disaster were to interfere with exams. In order to put pressure on NZQA to accept these policies and to attain justice for NCEA students, please keep sharing and signing the petition in order to gain further attention from NZQA and thank you for all the support you guys have given to this petition! Good luck for your remaining exams! Kia Kaha New Zealand!