“NCEA examinations have acquired a high level of credibility among students, teachers and parents thanks to a rigorous monitoring of all of the steps involved in the examination and because of the high validity and reliability of the results.” (OECD Reviews of Evaluation & Assessment in Education: New Zealand, OECD, 2012, p.49)

The Government has set the target of 85% of 18 year olds attaining NCEA Level 2 or an equivalent qualification by 2016.

How are we progressing?

• The NCEA attainment gaps between Māori and Pasifika candidates and candidates of other ethnicities are now significantly smaller than they were in 2004.
• At NCEA Level 2 the attainment gap between male and female has continued to reduce.
• At NCEA Levels 2 and 3 the gaps between schools across the decile range have also significantly diminished.

Two key definitions needed to be understood in analysing these statistics.  NZQA has two cohorts of 2011 NCEA students:

• An enrolled candidate refers to a student who has had an enrolment created on the NZQA database.
• A participating candidate refers to a student who has enrolled in an NCEA qualification and therefore has a reasonable opportunity.

What are the pass results for participating candidates from 2009-2011?

Clearly we still have much work to do to hit the projected Government’s target, but progress is going in the right direction.  You can access more detail from www.nzqa.govt.nz/statistics