NCEA organisers twittering to students

NCEA organisers will Twitter nervous teens traffic updates and time reminders in this year's exams.

New Zealand Qualifications Authority deputy chief executive Bali Haque this morning said plain-language Twitter updates would be added to existing communications methods for about 140,000 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) candidates.

"We'd like candidates to be as prepared as possible before exams," Haque said.

"We want to remind candidates of exam times and adding Twitter to our communications options will also be useful if we need to alert candidates in particular areas of issues such as traffic congestion."

The Twitter messages would not be sent during exam sessions and candidates would not be able to send messages to NZQA via Twitter.

"There is a certain irony that one of the regular messages we will be sending to candidates via their cellphones is that they should turn the phones off and leave them outside exams," Haque said.

NZQA also used its website, and messages to schools and news media to communicate exam information to pupils.