With changes to the assessments students face, do schools need to include typing lessons to give them all a fair start? Photo: Unsplash / Thomas Park

Should primary and intermediate schools teach children to type so they are ready for online exams at high school?

A Qualifications Authority report shows the Minister of Education Erica Stanford last year pondered whether to include touch-typing in the school curriculum because of the rise of digital tests and other forms of assessment.

"Does the description in the English learning area between years 4 and 8 give enough emphasis, direction, and detail to support students with the skills they need to type fluently in an online assessment? Should we be teaching students to touch type?" the document said she had asked.

The authority did not provide a direct answer, but its response appeared to be 'no' - sort of.

It advised the minister that students needed to be competent at using a keyboard, but they also needed "social emotional" as well as cognitive and technical skills.

"…students are likely to benefit from understanding and utilising basic computer skills, such as using software, browsing the web, and creating digital content," it said.

It said key skills and knowledge included "competent keyboarding skills" and the ability to construct tables and spreadsheets, including simple formulas.

It also said students need to know how to use AI appropriately and effectively.

The report said key "digital fluency" areas included higher-order thinking skills, collaboration and communication, digital citizenship including cultural and global awareness, and adaptability and lifelong learning.

NZQA is increasingly making exams available in digital form, and the critical NCEA reading, writing and maths tests are offered online.

Principals have warned some students from poor communities are not as computer-literate as other students and struggle with online exams.

NZQA said just 293 secondary school students achieved the most basic unit standard in typing last year and 317 completed the next level up.

Teenagers spoken to by RNZ said they did a lot of their school work and assessments on computers and felt they had good keyboard skills.

They said they had not had formal typing lessons but such lessons might be useful for students before they reached secondary school.

Hutt Valley High School principal Denise Johnson said teenagers developed good keyboard skills through frequent use of computers.

She said many were a lot faster than adults who had formal typing lessons when they were at school.

Whangaparāoa College principal Steve McCracken said the ability to type quickly and accurately was a definite advantage for students sitting online tests.

"Exams and assessments are about the students' ability to display their knowledge and what they've learned. So those students who are able to type… do have an advantage over those who are unable to type or who have never been taught to type properly," he said.

Schools did not commonly teach typing, and it was assumed students would figure out for themselves how to use a keyboard competently, he said.

"Schools have kind of relinquished the typing classes that I was subjected to as a student back in the day. The curriculum's so full that schools just don't have the ability to teach the actual skills and fundamentals of the ability to type," he said.

"It is assumed that it is done kind of naturally through other curriculum areas and particularly around the computing and technology curriculum area, but I don't think it's probably sufficient… particularly as we're moving into high-stakes assessments."

McCracken said it might be time to rethink how teens learned to type, but schools would need to drop things from their curriculum in order to make room for typing lessons.

He said he recently spoke to parents who arranged online typing courses for their children, which was a good idea, but it raised equity issues for those who could not afford to do the same.

Ultimately, however, exams should not be a test of students' ability to type, McCracken said.

"We're getting right down into the purpose of assessments and the ability to actually assess knowledge, rather than the skill of being able to type at pace whilst under that exam or pressure situation," he said.

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