For the second time in a week some high school students were disrupted due to issues with sitting exams online.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA)'s deputy chief executive of assessments, Jann Marshall, said in a statement the Level 1 English exam was the "largest ever", with over 20,000 students expected to log on online to access their exams.
"Extensive testing by our technology vendor gave NZQA confidence that this level of activity could be supported," Marshall said.
"The system began to slow after more than 18,000 students had logged in, and a decision was made to stop further logins to guarantee the experience of these students."
Exam centre managers were then directed to give students paper copies of the exams.
A teacher speaking to RNZ this morning called the failure unacceptable, and said that teachers had to print off paper copies of the exams as there wasn't enough.
Marshall said NZQA will "continue to work with its technology vendor as they scale up the capacity of the system" and apologises for the disruption.
This comes a week after a similar glitch saw students unable to access numeracy exams.
Urgent meeting sought - PPTA
The New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) is seeking an urgent meeting, calling the issues "simply not good enough".
"Running exams is NZQA’s core business and the issues being experienced by students around the motu are unacceptable," said PPTA Te Wehengarua acting president Chris Abercrombie.
In a letter sent to NZQA, Abercrombie said PPTA representatives at a Secondary Qualifications Advisory Group meeting on November 8 were given assurances the online exam platform would work.
However, he outlined some of the issues the students faced today.
"Today with the NCEA Level 1 English external assessment, the issues we have heard about so far include: students having logged in in plenty of time getting booted out; students getting booted out and losing planning they started for their essays; and students not being able to log in at all."
He continued: "Hearing that NZQA has responded that the issues are due to ‘unprecedented demand’, or the technology vendor not meeting expectations is simply not good enough."
Abercrombie said it was incomprehensible" that NZQA was unaware of the issues and had contingency plans in place for "the impact that many logins at the same time would have on the system".
"These concerns have been well signalled by us throughout the pilots. With student numbers due to increase exponentially next year with the new Level 1 standards, to say we are disappointed is very much an understatement," he said.
"Students deserve better – as do teachers who have done all they can to help students prepare for the exam, only for technical problems to arise.
"We are very keen to sit down with NZQA urgently and find out what can be done to sort this."
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