Neu: 2001-08-11 Contents of this issue: 1. Coalition Intact 2. Right Move ======================================================================== August 11th, 2001 1. Coalition Intact: Cook Islands Prime Minister Dr. Terepai Maoate and delegates stressed the importance of unity at yesterday's Democratic Alliance Party annual conference. Delegates reaffirmed Robert Woonton as the DAP deputy leader and confirmed the coalition with their junior partners, the New Alliance Party. NAP leader Norman George, who was dumped as the country's Deputy Prime Minister less than two weeks ago, was present with the two NAP members, Education Minister Jim Marurai and Upoko Simpson. George declined a request to be interviewed at the conference. "It's nothing personal," he said.(PIR) 2. Right Move: A controversial new qualification to replace School Certificate next year and which has been adopted by Niue High School has scored top marks in a major survey of schools in New Zealand. Almost 80 per cent of secondary schools surveyed by the NZ Herald said they were in favour of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) - the first important academic hurdle to be faced by students from next year. For the past two years, the NCEA has attracted strong criticism from opponents who claim it will be open to cheating, corruption and inconsistent teacher marking of student work. Several anti-NCEA schools have also conducted their own surveys of teacher support for the qualification this year, attracting heavy media publicity with their lukewarm results. But a Herald survey in July of 313 schools, accounting for 92 per cent of the country's secondary schools, has found 78 per cent support the NCEA. New Zealand Education Minister Trevor Mallard said acceptance of the NCEA had grown over the past 12 months, but he was concerned at the rising number of schools offering additional qualifications to run alongside the NCEA. The survey found one in four school principals were investigating offering additional qualifications, such as Cambridge University and baccalaureate examinations. __END__
