Up to 40,000 New Zealand students faced widespread disruption on Thursday morning when a major technical outage hit the online assessment platform used for NCEA examinations.
The system crash affected students sitting the Level 2 English exam across the country. Teenagers were locked out of screens, watched their answers vanish, or were forced to abandon digital testing for paper copies.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority confirmed that its digital exam platform experienced issues related to the transfer of student responses to its marking platform overnight.
Exams commenced at 9.30am. Screens froze shortly afterward.
One student said access codes worked initially before a network error notification took over computers. It halted work and locked out users who could no longer scroll or save progress.
The Qualifications Authority said the platform issue was resolved at 10.35am. Officials told schools that students able to continue digitally should do so, while others were moved to paper exams. The Chemistry scholarship exam that morning was unaffected.
Deputy chief executive Jann Marshall said the online assessment platform failed to perform as intended despite extensive testing. “We are sorry for the disruption and the stress that students, as well as teachers and parents, experienced. It’s unacceptable,” Marshall said to RNZ. She added that their vendor provided assurances that the glitches would not recur.
Education Minister Erica Stanford was briefed on the issue in the morning. She met with officials later in the day, receiving regular updates before an afternoon meeting with NZQA to discuss the failure.
“Today’s disruption to the NCEA Level 2 English exam will have been incredibly frustrating and stressful for students who have worked hard to prepare,” Stanford said. “They deserve better.”
Parents and educators reported panic in examination rooms as staff scrambled to print emergency paper copies. A message on the NCEA exam website during the system problem described the situation as “wholly unacceptable.”
Secondary Principals’ Association president Louise Ānaru said impacted students were granted extended time or would rely on derived grades based on internal work completed throughout the school year. Approximately 22,000 students were sitting the test out of 40,000 enrolled.
Post Primary Teachers Association Secondary Principals’ Council chair Steve McCracken said the failure was “incredibly disappointing.” He said that years of testing had taken place.
The technical failure arrived a day after students at Christchurch’s St Andrew’s College experienced a separate computer systems issue. That prevented 120 Year 13 English students from completing their exam, with those students receiving grades from internal examination results instead.
NZQA said it had time to check systems ahead of the remaining sessions. There are 127 total NCEA and New Zealand Scholarship exam sessions this year, which conclude on the morning of December 4.