A problem with NZQA's systems overnight slowed this morning's digital NCEA exams, with some students having to switch to paper partway through.
Secondary students sat NCEA Level 2 English and scholarship chemistry exams today.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said its digital exam platform “experienced issues this morning, related to the transfer of student responses from the exam platform to our marking platform overnight”.
Was your child's exam today affected? If so, email news@tvnz.co.nz
Exams begin at 9:30am for morning exams, and NZQA said the problem was resolved at 10.35am.
"Derived grades will be available for students who are unable to complete their exam, or whose performance was impaired by the disruption," an NZQA spokesperson said.
Education Minister Erica Stanford said she was briefed on the issue this morning.
"I understand this was an isolated incident and that NZQA have identified the cause of the outage and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again," she said.
"All students were given additional time to complete the exam.
"I will be meeting with NZQA early this afternoon to ensure no student is disadvantaged."
'Wholly unacceptable'
One parent said the disruption was "wholly unacceptable".
"The fact that there's no accommodation for time or a resit opportunity when it's a system issue is completely unfair to the kids who have worked hard to prepare for these exams."
Another who reached out to 1News said her daughter was "completely beside herself".
She said 45 minutes into the exam, "all content was lost by most students in her class", and they had to complete their exams on paper with no extra time.
"My daughter is now concerned that she may have not even passed the exam, as it went so poorly after the stress of losing all of her content, then the uncertainty of whether they were going to have to continue on paper or not, and then the reduced time provided."
Another said her daughter came home in tears, having lost 35 minutes of work.
"Her results are vital as she wants to go to the US to study. This is utterly appalling and backwards for NZ."
The disruption comes a day after students at Christchurch’s St Andrew’s College experienced problems with their digital exams, though NZQA believed this was caused by a local network issue.
There are 127 NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exam sessions this year, with exams concluding on the morning of December 4.
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds including hoax bomb threats, strikes and an unlikely pairing rocking out at a Metallica concert. (Source: 1News)
SHARE ME