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NZEI Te Riu Roa urged parents to check whether their school uses SMART, an Australian-sourced AI assessment tool adopted by the Ministry of Education, after teachers reported it assigned identical scores to completely different student scripts based on word count rather than writing quality. The union also flagged contradictory Ministry messaging on data storage: school…
NZEI Te Riu Roa urged parents to check whether their school uses SMART, an Australian-sourced AI assessment tool adopted by the Ministry of Education, after teachers reported it assigned identical scores to completely different student scripts based on word count rather than writing quality. The union also flagged contradictory Ministry messaging on data storage: school leaders were told backups go to Australia while parents were told data stays in New Zealand.
AI Incidents Aotearoa. (2026). Ministry of Education’s AI marking tool “SMART” scored student writing by word count (AIA-2026-0012). AI Safety Aotearoa. Retrieved 29 October 2026, from https://aiincidents.nz/register/ministry-of-educations-ai-marking-tool-smart-scored-student-writing-by-word-count/
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