School Roll Summary Report: July 2004

Number of Schools

At 1 July 2004 the number of schools in New Zealand was 2,647. In addition there were also 10 Kura Teina and 14 Teen Parent Units.

Despite a general trend towards a decreasing school population and declining school numbers, there are still new schools opening. Between 1 July 2003 and 1 July 2004 16 new schools were opened. Eight were state schools, one was integrated and seven were private. (These figures do not include five state schools - one secondary and four primary - that were established, but which were not yet operating at 1 July 2004. These will open to students in January 2005).

Of the eight new state schools that opened, four (two primary and two secondary) are in Auckland. Of the remaining four new state schools, one secondary and two composite schools are in the Waikato, and one composite is in the Bay of Plenty. Three of these are designated character Māori immersion schools.

A total of 62 schools closed. Of the 57 state schools that closed, 36 closed as a result of mergers with other state schools. One integrated and four private schools also closed. The overall net result was a decrease of 46 in the number of schools since 1 July 2003.

School Rolls

The rate of growth in the total numbers of students attending New Zealand schools is slowing and in primary schools there is evidence of overall roll decline in 2004. The following roll statistics include regular students, adult students, alternative education students, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (NZAID) students and foreign fee-paying students.

At 1 July 2004 the total number of students attending New Zealand schools was 764,654. This was an increase of 0.4% since July 2003 (2,899 students). See Figure 1 for the trend in total numbers of students since 1989.

This increase can be accounted for by increases in full-time regular students rather than foreign fee-paying students as the number of foreign fee-paying students decreased by 17% (2,971 students).

Primary school rolls (including Intermediates) experienced a decrease of 1.4% (6,586 students).

Composite school rolls increased by 6.4% (2,358 students).

Secondary school rolls increased by 2.7% (6,936 students).

The Correspondence School roll increased by 1.6% (124 students).

Special school rolls increased by 2.6% (67 students). This continues a trend of increases over the last five years.

The numbers of adult students (full-time and part-time) in New Zealand schools has fluctuated in recent years. There was a 0.2% increase in 2004, an 18.4% decrease in 2003, a 1.5% increase in 2002 and a 4.3% increase in 2001.

The number of male students is 389,794 and the number of female students is 374,860. This is a difference of 14,934 more males than females.

Figure 1.

Rolls by Year of Schooling

In 2004 the overall number of students in Years 1 to 8 decreased by 4,835 or 1%. The only years of schooling that increased their roll figures over those recorded in July 2003 were Years 2 and 5.

The number of students in Year 1 decreased by 3.5% (2,094), compared with an increase of 3.5% in 2003 and a decrease of 0.4% in 2002.

The number of foreign fee-paying students in years 1-8 decreased by 832 students (17.5%) contributing to the decrease in the Y1-Y8 roll.

The number of students in Years 9 - 13 are increasing, as shown in figure 2 below:

In Year 9 there was a 3.3% increase (2,128 students)

In Year 10 there was a 3.0% increase (1,824 students)

In Year 11 there was a 3.7% increase (2,148 students)

In Year 12 there was a 3.9% increase (1,854 students)

In Year 13 there was a 1.9% increase (639 students)

The number of students in Years 14 and 15 decreased by 56% (859 students)

Overall, in Years 9 - 15, rolls increased by 7,734 or 2.9%. This increase is accounted for by regular students as the number of foreign fee-paying students in years 9-15 decreased by 2,139 (16.8%).

Figure 2

Regional Differences

In 2004, regional school rolls either decreased or showed slower growth than in recent years. For example, in Auckland where 33.1 % of the school population attend schools, there was a 0.6% growth in rolls compared with 3.8% in July 2003 and 5% in July 2002.

Changes in regional rolls are summarised below in Table 1:

Table 1: Changes in regional rolls

Foreign Fee-paying Students

The number of foreign fee-paying students decreased by approximately 17% (2,971 students), from 17,448 students in July 2003, to 14,477 this year. This is a reversal of the trend of constant growth over recent years. For example, over both primary and secondary schools, increases of 46.8% in 2001 and 44.6% in 2002 have slowed to an increase of only 14.3% in 2003 and a decrease of 17% this year.

Foreign fee-paying students now comprise 1.9% of the New Zealand school population. Comparable figures in 2002 and 2003 were 2.0% and 2.3% respectively.

At July 2004 there were 3,910 foreign fee-paying students in years 1-8. The numbers of foreign fee-paying students in the primary years (years 1-8) decreased this year by 17.5%. This decrease in numbers comes after considerable growth in student numbers from 1999 to 2003 (507 to 4,742 primary school students).

At July 2004 there were 10,567 foreign fee-paying students in years 9-15. The numbers of foreign fee-paying students in the secondary years (years 9-15) decreased this year by 16.8% (2,139 students). This decrease also comes after considerable growth in student numbers from 1999 to 2003 (4,537 to 12,706 secondary school students.

The majority of foreign fee-paying students (50.5%) attend schools in the Auckland region, however, the proportion of foreign fee-paying students that attend Auckland schools has decreased since 2002 (from 56.2%). There are 17.7% in Canterbury and 6.8% in Wellington and 6.7% in Waikato and the proportions of foreign fee-paying students that attend schools in these regions have been gradually increasing.

93.6 % of foreign fee-paying students come from Asia, and of these, by far the largest group come from South Korea with 48%, followed by China with 24.5% and Japan with 11.3%.

The number of foreign fee-paying students enrolling from China showed a significant decrease of 38.4% between July 2003 and 2004. Enrolments from South Korea also decreased in the last year by 9.9%.

Table 2: Number of Asian Foreign Fee-Paying Students by Country of Citizenship at 1 July 2003-2004

Private School Rolls

The proportion of the New Zealand school population attending private schools at 1 July 2004 is 3.8% (29,150 students). This is the same as in 2003 (28,860 students).

Growth in private school rolls has slowed. The 290 extra students at private schools this July represent a 1 % increase in their rolls. The increases in private school rolls in 2003 and 2002 were 4.6% and 7.2% respectively.

Private primary and intermediate school rolls decreased in 2004 by 0.3%. In the state sector (including state integrated schools) the overall decrease in primary school rolls was 1.5%.

Private secondary school rolls also decreased in 2004 by 6.5%. This compares with a 3% decrease in 2003 and 13.3% growth in 2002.

Foreign fee-paying students account for 7.3% of the rolls in private schools in 2004, compared with 10.1% in 2003.

Rolls by Ethnicity

There were 750,111 domestic students as a 1 July 2004. The domestic student count excludes foreign fee-paying and NZAID students.

There are relatively more students of Māori, Pacific and Asian ethnicity than last year. The ethnic breakdown of the total number of domestic students in July 2004 was as follows:

NZ European/Pakeha and Other European students make up 60.5% (down from 61.3%);

Māori students make up 21.4% (up slightly from 21.1%);

Pasifika students make up 8.5% (up slightly from 8.4%);

Asian students make up 7.8% (up slightly from 7.5%); and

Students from other ethnic groups make up 1.7% (no change from 2003).

The number of domestic Asian students in New Zealand schools in July 2004 was 58,737. This was a 4.8% increase from 2003 showing slower growth than in 2003 when the numbers of domestic Asian students grew by 13.7%.

Māori Medium Education

Māori-medium education (MME) programmes involve students being taught either all or some curriculum subjects in the Māori language, either in immersion or bilingual programmes.

There were 29,579 students involved in MME at 1 July 2004. This is a 1.7% increase since July 2003.

The following table shows the number of students involved in immersion or bilingual programmes at 1 July 2004.

Table 3: Students involved in Māori-medium education at 1 July 2004

Note: Students are counted at their highest level of Māori-medium learning.

Number of Māori involved in Māori-medium Education

The number of Māori students in MME has increased by 1.7% since July 2003. The 27,127 Māori students in Māori-medium education in July 2004 represents 16.9% of all Māori students. This percentage has remained virtually unchanged over the past three years.

Numbers of Māori students in the 81% and above immersion level (Level 1) have increased by 337, while those in the 51 to 80% immersion level (level 2) have increased by 667. Decreases of 540 and 15 students occurred in the 31 to 50% (level 3) and 12 to 30% immersion (level 4a) levels respectively.

Kura Kaupapa Māori

Kura Kaupapa Māori are state schools in which Māori language, culture and values predominate and in which the principal language of instruction is Māori.

In the year to 1 July 2004, the number of students attending Kura Kaupapa Māori increased by 202 to 5,995. Over the same period, the number of Kura Kaupapa Māori increased by one to 62.

There were 5,976 Māori attending Kura Kaupapa Māori, which represents 3.7% of all Māori students. This percentage is unchanged from 2003.

Te Reo Māori as a separate subject

In addition to Māori-medium education, where Māori is the medium of instruction for some or all of the time, there are also 23,620 students learning Te Reo Māori as a separate subject for three or more hours per week. Of these, 15,160 are Māori, which represents 9.4% of all Māori students.

ECE Attendance by Year One Students

There were 57,398 Year one students in July 2004. Schools were unable to establish whether 1477 of these children had regularly attended some form of early childhood education (ECE) immediately prior to starting school.

For those where attendance history could be established, 6% of Year 1 children in 2004 had not regularly attended ECE. This is a slight decrease from the 6.5% in 2003.

A total of 3,372 Year 1 students attended Kōhanga Reo. Of these, 3,198 students were Māori. This represents 25% of all Māori Year 1 students.

Pacific-medium Education

A total of 24 schools offer Pacific-medium education, where a Pacific language is the medium of instruction for more than 3 hours per week. Of these, twenty one were primary, two were secondary schools, and one was a middle school (restricted composite).

One school offered Pacific-medium education in four Pacific languages (Samoan, Cook Island Māori, Nuiean and Tongan), another school offered it in three Pacific languages, while four schools offered it in two languages. Samoan was the language offered most frequently, accounting for almost three quarters of the students involved.

In July 2004 a total of 2,042 students were involved in Pacific-medium education. This number shows an increase of 17.6% since 2003.

Since 2003 there has been a sharp increase in students involved in Pacific-medium education at level 2 (between 12.5 and 20 hours per week). In 2004 there are 832 students involved in learning Samoan, Cook Island Māori and Tongan at level 2 and this is up 133.7% compared with 356 students in 2003.

Language learning at primary level

There has been little change in the number of Year 1-8 students learning one or more languages other than English or Te Reo Māori for 30 hours or more per year. Total numbers reported in 2004 are 3,390 in Years 1-6, and 10,693 in Years 7-8. However, some students may be learning more than one language.

Very small numbers are learning Pacific languages (247) (these students are not involved in a Pacific-medium programme).

There has been a slight increase in numbers of students learning European languages: 10,590 in 2004 compared to 9,806 in 2003. The increase is largely accounted for in an increase in the numbers learning French.

The numbers of students learning Asian languages has dropped from 3,887 students in 2003 to 2,621 students in 2004. This decrease is largely accounted for be a decrease in the numbers learning Japanese.

Secondary Subjects

From 2003 information was collected on the numbers of students studying subjects for more than 20 hours per year, at any time during the whole academic year, whereas in previous years data collected represented a snapshot as at 1 July. Furthermore, from 2003, subjects were also defined by Learning Zone (i.e. the academic level at which the subject is being studied), rather than by the Year of Schooling of the student.

Comparing 2004 data with that from 2003, the following observations can be made:

Between 2003 and 2004 there are only minor differences in the numbers of schools offering particular subjects and in the overall patterns of subject choice.

Gender imbalances in curriculum choices continue. Girls predominate (more than 55%) in many languages, most visual and performing arts, most social sciences, biology/human biology and earth sciences, food and textile technology, text and information management, and tourism.

Boys predominate in maths with calculus, physics, graphics, computer programming and most technology subjects, sports studies, outdoor education, fishing/farming/forestry and industrial trades. Boys also make up 58% of those taking communication skills, 56% of those taking remedial English and 61% of those taking remedial studies.

Teacher Vacancies

The total number of vacancies for full-time permanent teachers has decreased by 16.8%, from 315 in July 2003, to 262 in July 2004.

24% of the vacancies arose from teachers leaving the teaching profession compared with 20% in July 2003.

In the primary sector 18.5% and 18.3% of the vacancies in 2004 and 2003 respectively, arose from teachers leaving the teaching profession. While in the secondary sector in 2004 33.3% and in 2003 28.5% of vacancies were due to this reason.

A further 6% of the vacancies were due to teachers retiring.

42% of vacancies arose from teaching staff moving to another school.

Fewer permanent full-time vacancies needed to be re-advertised this year. Of all full-time vacancies 41% (107) had to be re-advertised because no suitable appointment could be made compared with 48% (152) in July 2003.

415 schools reported difficulty or inability to fill limited term full-time appointments (compared to 459 in 2003) and 435 schools found it difficult or impossible to fill limited term part-time appointments (compared to 507 in 2003).

The number of vacancies for positions with a management component has decreased in 2004 with 15 vacancies at secondary and composite schools, compared with 30 vacancies in July 2003.

Apparent Retention

Retention rates are calculated by taking the number of 14 year olds as a base population and calculating how many of these students are still attending school when they are 15, 16 17 year olds etc. Because this calculation takes no account of migration it is called an `apparent' retention rate and should be treated with caution.

Overall these apparent retention rates suggest that more students are staying on for a fourth year in secondary school. This can be seen by the increased percentage of students aged 17 in the table below: 57% in 2002, 58% in 2003 and 61% in 2004.

Despite significant disparities in retention, the figures in the table below also suggest that more Māori students are also staying on for a fourth year in secondary school.

Table 4: Apparent Retention Rates by Age and Ethnicity *

* No adjustment has been made to account for migration.

** Excludes NZAID and foreign fee-paying students

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.