The government will give schools a temporary alternative to new online literacy and numeracy tests that many teenagers have found too hard.

It is also deferring major NCEA changes so schools can concentrate on maths, reading and writing.

Education Minister Jan Tinetti announced this afternoon that in 2024 and 2025 schools could use regular NCEA standards instead of the online tests to prove students met minimum reading, writing and maths requirements.

From next year, students must pass either the online tests or the assessment standards in order to gain any level of the NCEA qualification.

Education Minister Jan Tinetti. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone.

"Currently there are over 500 maths and 100 literacy standards. From next year there will be a list of the essential and foundational maths and literacy assessment standards that a student must achieve in order to pass NCEA," says Tinetti.

"But in order to get this right we are easing the pressure on teachers by slowing down the wider implementation of NCEA level 2 and 3 and re-focusing the work to refresh the curriculum."

Tinetti says schools will prioritise mathematics, English, te reo Māori and pāngarau but the government had deferred the requirement for schools to implement changes to other areas of the curriculum by one year.

"The refresh and redesign of the curriculum will continue on existing timeframes and be available to all schools from 2026, but teaching it won't be compulsory until 2027."

Changes to NCEA Level 1 will go ahead next year as planned but full implementation of changes to NCEA Level 2 will be deferred to 2026 and Level 3 will be deferred to 2027.

Today's announcement followed a series of trials with Year 10 students that found many did not know how to use capital letters and full stops and did not know there were 60 minutes in an hour.

The writing test had the lowest pass rates with last year's pilots recording pass rates of 34 per cent and 46 per cent.

An independent review says some students might struggle with the tests because they are not familiar with using computers, leading to suggestions the tests were unfair.

Some teachers warned the online tests could become an insurmountable barrier that would prevent many young people, especially those from Māori, Pacific, and low-income backgrounds, from earning an NCEA qualification.

Teachers and principals had also warned that they could not cope with the scale and pace of change expected of them.

Secondary Principals Association president Vaughan Couillault says many people have been asking the government to change its implementation timeline.

"With this adjusted timeline, schools will have more time to build their capacity and adequately prepare for the changes, ensuring that the new standards can be more successfully integrated into teaching practice."

Post Primary Teachers Association acting president Chris Abercrombie says the union is pleased the government is listening to teachers.

But he says the online literacy and numeracy tests should not be introduced next year.

"The pilots are showing there is a lot more work needed to ensure that the corequisites are accessible and equitable for all students. These corequisites are high stakes for rangatahi - if they can't achieve them, they don't get NCEA and their life choices are severely diminished.

"While the minister's decision to allow schools to undertake either the new NCEA literacy and numeracy corequisites, or keep with a restricted list of existing unit standards for two more years, provides a little more flexibility, we would have preferred a complete deferral of the corequisites."

-John Gerritsen/RNZ.