'Bit of a disaster': Principals brace for more NCEA glitches

Papakura High School will have hard copies of Monday and Tuesday's NCEA exam papers on standby following a glitch which saw students unable to access their online exams.

About 40,000 students were sitting NCEA level 2 English on Thursday - many of them online - when a malfunction disrupted the exam, forcing many to revert to using paper exams.

While many students were given additional time to complete their exams, others will now be judged on internal work or assessments throughout the year.

Papakura High School principal Simon Craggs told Morning Report it was a "bit of a disaster".

He said he had never had full confidence NZQA would be able to run exams online at scale - and his concerns had been proven correct.

Craggs said Thursday's malfunction "hit us hard".

At first, staff were running around wondering if the problem was with the school's internet.

Rather than NZQA sending a text alert out, it sent as email at 10.03am which staff didn't see straight away, he said.

It was "pretty stressful for those kids during that time".

Craggs said it's not compulsory for all exams to be completed online - and of those that they can choose to run the "old school" way with pen and paper - they do so.

"The IT infrastructure at the school, the availability of devices, the reliability of devices, all those things are really contingent on everything working and lots of variable, whereas pen and paper, you give someone a new pen if it doesn't work.

"There's a lower risk of failure."

Craggs said many students also just prefer to use pen and paper for exams.

NZQA deputy chief executive Jann Marshall earlier said despite extensive testing, the online assessment platform didn't perform as it should have.

"We are sorry for the disruption and the stress that students, as well as teachers and parents, experienced," she said.

"It's unacceptable.

"Students have worked hard for the examination and recently expected the platform to perform well."

She said their vendor had assured them that glitches that "slowed" and "locked people out" of the system would not happen again.