Completion of tertiary education

Indicator Description

Proportion of students successfully completing a tertiary qualification.

What We Have Found

Forty-five percent of New Zealanders beginning a tertiary qualification in 2002 had completed by the end of 2006.
 

Why This Is Important

Completion is useful as a measure of the rate of production of qualifications from New Zealand's tertiary education system, and hence as an indicator for the rate of a country's skills acquisition.  Completion also provides an indicator of the internal efficiency or quality of the tertiary education system.  Having said this, it should be recognised that there are many factors outside of the tertiary education system that will impact on outcomes, and that concepts of retention and completion are not always good markers of quality, and need to be read in the context of other indicators.

The term 'completion' used here refers to successful completion of a qualification, rather than a course.  Course completion rates will generally be much higher than qualification completion rates, as most qualifications will require the successful completion of a large number of courses to qualify the student.  Further, lower completion rates in a qualification may not mean that learning is wasted, for example when course passes are cross-credited to another qualification.  The same, however, does not always hold at course level.

In the wider context, students successfully complete courses at a much higher rate than qualifications, and many leave study (in particular, in times of higher employment), with only one or two courses left to complete for their qualification.  Other students will enrol for a qualification, but abandon it once they have met their objectives, which may be passing only two or three courses.  To that extent, if a high proportion of students do not complete their qualifications, this can not necessarily be read as a system failure.

New Zealand's lifelong approach to tertiary learning, relatively open access to enrolment, and easy access to student loans, have tended to increase the number of students with a focus on part-time course-based study, and those trying to combine work with study.  This is borne out in other countries, which have higher academic entry requirements, more full-time study, and less access to student support.  Recent statistics in Britain show that the institutions with the highest drop-out rates were also the ones that generally excelled at attracting students from under-represented groups.  Therefore, completion goals can not be viewed in isolation from access goals.

How We Are Going

In 2005 New Zealand had the third highest tertiary type A (essentially a degree-level qualification) graduation rate across 24 OECD countries with 51.3% of people at the typical age of graduation completing a tertiary type A qualification.  New Zealand also had the third highest tertiary type B (a sub-degree level tertiary qualification) graduation rate in 2005, with 21.2% of people at the typical age of graduation completing.

Tertiary graduation rates for selected OECD countries (2005)

Level 1 to 3 certificates were the most common type of qualification awarded in 2006 (50,109 students), followed by degrees (24,581) and level 4 certificates (15,396).  However, after substantial growth in completions from 2000 to 2005 for level 1 to 4 certificates, reflecting the growth in enrolments at Institutes of Technology/ Polytechnics and wānanga in these levels, the number of completions for level 1 to 4 certificates declined by 15% from 2005 to 2006.  A decline in enrolments at wānanga was a major contributor to this reduction.

Number of completions for domestic students at public providers, by qualification level (2000 to 2006)

For other higher-level qualifications with public providers the number of completions either increased between 2005 and 2006, or in the case of masters degrees and doctorates there was negligible change.  The number of completions for bachelors degrees increased by 5.0% between 2005 and 2006, after no change between 2000 and 2005.

Forty-five percent of New Zealanders beginning a tertiary qualification in 2002 had completed by the end of 2006.  Five-year completion rates for students starting qualifications at bachelors degree-level and above, apart from doctorates, were much higher than for students enrolled in sub-degree qualifications.  Students who enrolled in honours or postgraduate certificate/diploma in 2002 were the most likely to complete by the end of 2006, with 63% completing.  Although those starting doctorates were least likely to complete within five years, with only 30% completing, doctoral students were more likely than other students to continue and complete their study beyond the five-year period analysed here.  Forty-eight percent of New Zealand students beginning a bachelors degree in 2002 had completed by the end of 2006.

Five-year completion rates for domestic students starting a qualification at a public provider in 2002, by ethnic group and qualification level

Asian students had the highest completion rate five years after starting study over all qualification levels (59%), while the overall completion rate for Māori was the second highest at 47%.  However, Māori completion rates were much lower, relatively speaking, for degree-level qualifications and above than European/Pākehā.  Asian and European/Pākehā completion rates were very similar for bachelors degree and above, with Asian students having higher rates at the masters level.  Pasifika had the lowest rate of completions at the bachelors degree level.  For every 100 students in each ethnic group who started a bachelors degree in 2002, 32 Pasifika students completed, compared with 36 for Māori, 50 for European/Pākehā, and 54 for Asian students.

On average female students (50%) were 25% more likely to complete a tertiary qualification than males (40%), and have higher completion rates at each level of qualification except for masters degrees where the male rates are higher.  For every 100 female students who started a bachelors degree in 2002, 50 completed, compared with only 44 male students.

Where To Find Out More

• Tertiary student retention
• Tertiary student progression
• Educational attainment in the adult population

References

Ministry of Education (2007). New Zealand's Tertiary Education Sector Profile & Trends 2006. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Scott, D. (2004). Retention, Completion and Progression in Tertiary Education 2003. Wellington: Ministry of Education.