NZQA Automated Text Scoring — AI Marking of New Zealand's National Writing Literacy Standard

New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) built an Automated Text Scoring tool, training a machine-learning model on thousands of previously human-marked scripts to grade the NCEA co-requisite Writing standard — a national literacy assessment that most secondary students must pass to gain NCEA qualifications. The AI does the primary marking; human markers are retained only to check the most borderline scripts.
In a 2024 trial covering 36,000 writing samples, NZQA reported the tool was "as reliable as human markers." Chief executive Grant Klinkum stated the model reached an 80% agreement rate with human markers.
The tool was rolled out nationally for the co-requisite Writing exam sat in May 2025 by more than 55,000 students. About 20,000 scripts (roughly 40%, concentrated near the pass/fail boundary) were still checked by a human marker, and wherever AI and human scores disagreed, the human mark was used. Schools received results 3.5 weeks earlier than in the previous year.
The evidence base covers grading accuracy and turnaround time, not direct student learning outcomes. The 20% disagreement rate observed in the trial is non-trivial for a high-stakes qualification gate, which is why NZQA retained mandatory human review for borderline cases rather than fully automating the exam.

Read the full analysis: https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/10/ai-to-mark-year-10-students-writing-tests/