55% - What does it mean?

Since the very first NIE in March 2003, the pass mark for the examination has always been 49%. The truth is that it is 48.57% as standard NPIA practice is to round up or down either side of the % closest to the stated pass mark. To obtain that 48.57% an NIE candidate will have to score 34/70 in the examination (remembering that 10 of the 80 questions are verification questions and do not count towards the result).

From and including the November 2010 NIE the pass mark will be raised to 55%. This represents the most significant change in the way the NIE is managed since it began in March 2003 and one that NIE candidates really need to sit up and take notice of.

On the face of it, a 6% rise does not seem that much and consequently there will be many candidates, supervisors and trainers who will say "well, it won't make that much of a difference will it?" But I am telling you that it will. It means that the NIE, already one of the hardest police examinations to pass, easily becomes the toughest nut to crack.

To score 55% a candidates will have to raise their game and score 39/70 or 55.71%. Those 5 extra marks are exceptionally difficult to come by. This is due to the fact that in examinations you tend to find that a large proportion of candidates fail/pass but a short margin, usually 1 to 4 marks i.e. a lot of people fail because they score 42.25% to 46.47% and a lot of people pass because they score 48.57% to 54.28%. When the new 55% is in play, that group who used to pass will become failures and there are a lot of them.

You may consider my observations to be ill-founded and based on my opinion alone - they are not. Official NPIA Examinations and Assessment Unit figures show that in the 8 NIE's that took place in 2007 and 2008, 6145 candidates sat the examination. At 48.57%, 4689 of them passed (that is a pass rate of 76.3%). NPIA research shows that if these candidates had taken the examination with a 55% pass mark in place, 3617 would have passed (a pass rate of 58.9%) - an extra 1072 people would have failed. By raising the pass mark by 6%, and extra 17.4% of candidates would have failed.

Of course we will not actually know for certain what effect this change will have until the first 4 examinations with a 55% pass mark have taken place but only the most mindless of optimists could think that pass rates will not fall.

Now add another factor - NPIA are insisting that any candidate who fails the examination twice is removed from the ICIDP and they will not be allowed to apply for the CID for 18 months after that second failure. At the moment, many forces allow 3, 4 or more attempt to pass the examination - those days are gone - it is a strict 'two strikes and you're out' policy from November 2010.

My strongest advice to you is this - if you are taking the September NIE, do not take it lightly, put the work in now or face an even harder task in November. If you are taking the examination from November onwards you have to face the fact that you need to work and work hard to pass. If you think otherwise, if you do otherwise then there is a strong chance you will fail - do that twice and you are out.

Paul Connor.

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