St Peter's top of the class for NCEA

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St Peter's College in Gore has come out on top of Southland secondary schools for their 2006 NCEA results.

The school did consistently well across the board, with 80.8 percent of pupils achieving NCEA level one, 86.7 percent achieving level two, and 86.5 percent gaining level three.

St Peter's College principal Martin Chamberlain said he was proud of the pupils' achievements.

"I realised being a Catholic school and a boarding school it's an option people choose so we have to do what we do very well," he said.

During the past three years, the school has done consistently well, topping the results in 2004 as well.

The results reflected pupils who were motivated and who had come to expect that it was possible to achieve high results, Mr Chamberlain said.

Roxburgh Area School received a 100 percent pass rate for level three pupils, which principal Gary Pasco said was "really pleasing".

However, he said statistics could be misleading and were open to interpretation.

Aurora College had the lowest pass rate overall but acting principal Robyn Hickman said the school was pleased that 87 percent of pupils who completed year 13 last year achieved an NCEA level one or higher qualification.

"We're pleased with the increase of the percentage of students achieving both level one and two NCEA.

"Although they're small increases of 4 or 5 percent, it's pleasing and we hope to build on it each year," she said.

Southland Secondary Principals Association chairman Eoin Crosbie said people needed to be careful how they read these results.

The results were counted from school rolls as of July 1. Some schools had high attrition rates after that time when pupils left school for employment or for other reasons, and they were counted as failures when they were not necessarily so, he said.

Overall, Southland and Central Otago schools did well compared with national averages, with 76 percent achieving above the national average for level one, 80 percent for level two and 56 percent for level three. The figures were based on the schools' rolls at July 1, 2006, and included details of all 2006 qualifications framework results, including NCEA and University Entrance pass rates.

Almost one in four southern pupils are leaving school without obtaining NCEA level one, according to Education Ministry figures.

In 2006, 24.2 percent, or 315, pupils who left school had failed to gain level one. This mirrors the national figure of 24.6 percent of pupils failing to achieve the minimum level.

- © Fairfax NZ News