NZQA

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is a qualifications authority which was introduced in 1989 to expand the qualifications available to New Zealanders from "Qualified Sheep Farmer" to "Qualified Sheep Farmer with Excellence Endorsed", "Qualified Sheep Farmer without Excellence Endorsed but still Merit Endorsed", and "Australian". NZQA is funded from the central government as well as fees, with the budget being about $70 million each year, most of which is spent ensuring that the NZQA website never works as intended.

Operations

NZQA operates on its three core values:

• A marking schedule so complicated it requires the entire staff of stuff.co.nz to publicly moderate it each year.
• Ludicrously difficult exams coupled with shoehorning results into a bell curve.
• Preference of Derived Grades over rescheduling an exam.

Notable failures

• In 2016, two crucial numbers in the Level 2 Calculus exam were swapped. It was later revealed that the person who wrote the exam was the same person that counts the Labour and National general election votes.
• No students taking standard AS 90125 Making sparse connections between NCEA and real life passed, when one of the questions was "Describe, discuss, and explain the NCEA system."