School Roll Summary Report: July 2003

Number of Schools

Between July 2002 and July 2003 ten state schools and three integrated schools closed. All were primary schools except one, which was an integrated secondary school. Two of the primary school closures were due to mergers with other state schools.

In the same period three new state schools (two primary and one secondary) and one integrated (secondary) school were opened.

School Rolls

At July 2003 there were 761,755 students attending New Zealand schools. This is an increase of nearly 2% on July 2002.

Two thirds of the increase in rolls is attributable to an increase in secondary sector enrolments, reflecting the movement of the school-age population bulge.

Rolls in the primary years (years 1-8) increased by nearly 1%, and those in the secondary years (Years 9-15) increased by 3.5%.

Primary

The largest increases in the primary sector occurred in Year 1 (3.5%) and Year 8 (4.4%), in line with the Ministry's national school roll projections. Part of the increase in year 1 students since July 2002 may be attributable to an increase in the expected number of new entrant migrants entering New Zealand schools.

The increases in Year 1 and Year 8 enrolments account for 15% and 12% respectively of the total roll increase since July 2002.

Secondary

In the secondary sector the largest increase occurred in Year 11 (4.3%), accounting for 18% of the total roll increase.

Geographically

Nearly one third of the New Zealand school population attend Auckland schools, and rolls in this region continue to grow the fastest. Other regions experiencing appreciable growth were the Bay of Plenty and Canterbury. Enrolments in Southland, the West Coast and Manawatu-Wanganui continued to decline.

Type

The distribution of the school population between state, state integrated and private schools remained similar to previous years, with:

• 85.7% of students attending state schools
• 10.5% attending state integrated
• 3.8% attending private schools.

Private school rolls grew by 4.6% and state integrated rolls grew by 3.3%, compared to an increase of 1.6% in state schools. Foreign fee-paying students make up 10% of private school rolls, and account for 16% of the growth in private schools.

Just under 60% of the urban increase was centred in the Auckland region. The only regions to experience roll growth across all urban and rural classifications were Auckland and Canterbury.

Figure 1 Total number of students at 1 july (1998-2003)

Foreign fee-paying students

17,448 foreign fee-paying students attended New Zealand schools in July 2003, making up 2.3% of the school population. Whilst their numbers continue to grow, they do so at a slower rate than in recent years: the growth rate this year (between July 2002 and 2003) was 14%, compared with growth of 45% last year. The increase in foreign fee-paying students accounted for around 16% of the (2%) increase in the school population.

Primary

While nearly three-quarters of foreign fee-paying students attend secondary schools, the number in the primary sector continues to grow. However, the increase this year (40%) is less than half of the dramatic (86%) increase seen in the primary sector last year.

Type

State schools experienced the biggest increase (16% - 1,722 students) in foreign fee-paying students. State integrated schools also saw an increase (14% - 268 students) and private schools had 7% (199) more foreign fee-paying students in July 2003 than in July 2002.

Ethnicity

The number of Asian domestic students attending New Zealand schools has increased substantially (by just under 14%) since July 2002. They now account for 7.5% of the domestic school population - compared with just over 6.5% last year.

The proportion of NZ European and Other European students in the total domestic school population decreased slightly (from 61.5% in 2002 to just under 60% this year), while the proportion of Māori students has increased marginally from 20.4% to 20.6%, and that of Pacific students has increased from 8.1% to 8.2%.

Māori Medium Education

The number of Māori students in Māori-medium education has increased by 4.0%. However, this increase has not kept pace with the increasing numbers of Māori students in the school population. The 26,675 Māori students in Māori-medium education represents 17.0% of all Māori students, which is only a slight recovery from the downward trend from 18.6% at July 1999 to 16.8% in July last year.

The numbers of Māori students taking Level 1 immersion (81% and above immersion) have increased by 569 to 12,209, while those taking Level 2 (51% to 80% immersion) have fallen by 466 to 4,658. This appears to indicate that students in established immersion programmes are progressing to higher levels.

ECE attendance by Year 1 students

Of all Year 1 students, 91.2% had regularly attended some form of early childhood education immediately prior to starting school - a slight, but definite, improvement compared with the 90.5% July 2002 participation rate.

A quarter of all Māori Year 1 students attended Kōhanga Reo.

Retention

Of the domestic 14-year-olds at school in July 2001, an estimated 82% were still at school at age 16 in 2003. This represents an improvement (estimated at 2%) on last year. The retention rates for 17 and 18 year olds have also increased slightly compared with last year.

Teacher Vacancies

Twenty percent of the vacancies arose from teachers leaving the teaching profession - 18% of vacancies in the primary sector and 25% in the secondary sector were due to this reason. A further 6% of the vacancies were due to teachers retiring.

In the Auckland region, the absolute number of vacancies declined, though its share of vacancies has continued to increase - from 33% in July 2002 to 34% in July 2003.

Nearly half (48%) of all full-time permanent vacancies had to be re-advertised because no suitable appointment could be made, compared with 40% in July 2002. The decile trend continues with 30% of hard to fill vacancies situated in decile 1 and 2 schools.

Related Pages on Education Counts

Other reports can be found on the School Roll Summary Reports publication index page.

The July School Roll Return data collection page provides links to data, publications and indicators based on that collection.