NZQA says it's continuing work on its digital assessment platform to prevent further disruptions, after recent technical issues impacted students in Level 2 English and scholarship chemistry exams.
On Thursday, NZQA said it experienced issues "related to the transfer of student responses from the exam platform to our marking platform overnight".
Exams began at 9.30am, and NZQA said the problem was resolved at 10.35am.
NZQA's systems slowed this morning's digital NCEA exams, with some students having to switch to paper. (Source: 1News)
Caretaker Education Minister Erica Stanford said at the time that students had been "badly let down", and that she had met with NZQA "to discuss what went wrong and what is being done to put it right".
Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie said teachers faced "utter chaos" during the disruption.
He said some schools were "furiously trying to photocopy in every photocopier in the school to try and get some papers", while some sent the students home and made decisions before NZQA released information.
In a statement this afternoon, NZQA chief executive Christian Hawkesby apologised for the disruption, adding that it recognised the incident was "stressful for students, whānau and schools".
"We are sorry for the disruption and additional strain on students, whānau and schools this incident has caused. We are focused on restoring trust and confidence in our ability to deliver digital assessments," he said.
To ensure students were "treated fairly", Hawkesby said NZQA would be "reviewing marking decisions to make sure appropriate flexibility can be applied, and schools can continue providing derived grades for students where they have evidence of what students know".
"We will be monitoring this process with schools."
Hawkesby added that NZQA was continuing to work closely with its IT provider and "undertaking extensive testing of our systems through the weekend".
"I have spoken with the provider’s Chief Executive who has also apologised for the issue and assured us that it will not be repeated."
The remaining exams would start with the maximum capacity the system could handle, he said, and ongoing monitoring would be in place.
Post Primary Teachers Association president Chris Abercrombie said schools had to find their own solutions to a major issue that impacted students taking their digital exams. (Source: Breakfast)
Hawkesby said NZQA was also working with schools to make sure all students sitting upcoming exams on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday had access to paper backups.
"We are making this move out of an abundance of caution – but also mindful that students may be nervous about attempting exams digitally," he said.
Paper backups would also be provided for students sitting NCEA Level 1 English – the largest exam of the year with around 41,000 digital entries. NZQA would also cover the schools' printing costs for other exams.
There were 13 digital exams remaining over the three upcoming exam days with almost 26,000 digital entries.
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