School Roll Summary Report: July 2005

Number of Schools

At 1 July 2005 the number of schools in New Zealand was 2,580. In addition there were also 10 Kura Teina and 17 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 2004 and 1 July 2005 17 new schools were opened. Eleven were state schools, one was integrated and five were private. One of the new schools opened in 2005 was a designated character Māori immersion school.

A total of 67 schools closed between 1 July 2004 and 1 July 2005 .

School Rolls

The following roll statistics include regular students, adult students, alternative education students, NZAID (formerly MFAT) students and foreign fee-paying students.

The overall roll has declined since 2004. At 1 July 2005 the total number of students attending New Zealand schools was 762,790. This was a decrease of 0.2% (1,864 students) since July 2004. See Figure 1 for the trend in total numbers of students since 1991. The overall roll decline is explained by a decrease in years 1-8, where student numbers dropped by 0.6%. In years 9-15, there was a 0.4% increase in student numbers.

• Primary school rolls (including Intermediates) experienced a decrease of 1.3% (5,750 students).

• Composite school rolls increased by 5.0% (1,948 students).

• Secondary school rolls increased by 1.2% (3,190 students).

• The Correspondence School roll decreased by 17.1% (1,364 students).

• Special school rolls increased by 4.2% (112 students).

The number of foreign fee-paying students decreased by 22% (3,178 students).

The numbers of adult students (full-time and part-time) in New Zealand schools has fluctuated in recent years. There was a 25.0% decrease in 2005, 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.

In 2005, there were 382,923 male and 368,498 female students.

Figure 1

Rolls by Year of Schooling

In 2005 the overall number of students in Years 1 to 8 decreased by 2,947 or 0.6%. 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.

Overall, in Years 9 – 15 rolls increased by 7,734 (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%).

Regional Differences

In 2005, regional school rolls either decreased or showed slower growth than in recent years. For example, in Auckland where 33 % of the school population attend schools, there was a 0.5% growth in rolls compared with 0.6% in July 2004 and 3.8% in July 2003.

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 (FFP) students decreased by approximately 22% (3,178 students), from 14,477 students in July 2004 to 11,299 in July 2005. This is a continuation of the decline seen between 2003 and 2004. Foreign fee-paying students now comprise 1.5% of the New Zealand school population. Comparable figures in 2003 and 2004 were 2.3% and 1.9% respectively.

At July 2005 there were 2,864 FFP students in years 1-8. This was a 26.8% (3,910) decrease since July 2004. At July 2005 there were 8,435 FFP students in years 9-15. This was a 20.2% (10,567) decrease since July 2004.

Nearly half (48.9%) of FFP students were attending schools in the Auckland region in July 2005. However, the proportion of FFP students attending Auckland schools has decreased since 2002 (from 56.2%). In July 2005, there were 18.7% in Canterbury , 6.6% in Wellington and 6.7% in Waikato .

91.3 % of FFP students come from Asia , and of these, by far the largest group come from South Korea with 45%, followed by China with 15.5% and Japan with 14%.

The number of FFP students enrolling from China showed a significant decrease of 47% between July 2004 and July 2005. Enrolments from South Korea also decreased in the last year by 22.1%.

Table 2: Number of Asian Foreign Fee-Paying Students by Country of Citizenship at 1 July 2003 -2005

Private School Rolls

The proportion of the New Zealand school population attending private schools at 1 July 2005 was 3.8% (29,358 students). This is the same proportion as in 2004 (29,150 students). Growth in private school rolls has slowed over the last few years. The 208 and 290 extra students at private schools at July 2005 and July 2004 respectively represent a 1 % increase in their rolls. The increase in private school rolls in 2003 and 2002 were 4.6% and 7.2% respectively.

Foreign fee-paying students account for 4.8% of the rolls in private schools in 2005, compared with 7.3% in 2004 and 10.1% in 2003.

Rolls by Ethnicity

There were 751,421 domestic students as at 1 July 2005 this was an increase of 1310 since 1 July 2004 . The domestic student count excludes foreign fee-paying and NZAID students.

There are relatively more students of Māori and Pasifika ethnicity than last year and no change in the proportion of Asian students. The ethnic breakdown of the total number of domestic students in July 2005 was as follows:

• NZ European/Pakeha and Other European students make up 56.6% (down from 60.5%);

• Māori students make up 22.1% (up slightly from 21.4%);

• Pasifika students make up 8.8% (up slightly from 8.5%);

• Asian students make up 8.0%; and

• Students from other ethnic groups make up 1.9% (up slightly from 1.7%).

The number of domestic Asian students in New Zealand schools at July 2005 was 60,358 this was an increase of 1,621 since July 2004. This was a 2.8% increase since 2004, this compares to 4.8% increase in 2004 and a 13.7% increase in 2003.

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.

At 1 July 2005 , there were 28,914 students involved in MME. This was a 2.2% decrease since July 2004, when 29,579 were students involved in MME. However, 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 2005

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

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 2005 , the total number of students attending Kura Kaupapa Māori increased by 181 to 6,176. There were 6,151 Māori attending Kura Kaupapa Māori, which represents 3.8% of all Māori students. This percentage is unchanged from 2004. Between July 2004 and July 2005, the number of Kura Kaupapa Māori increased by one to 63.

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 20,822 students learning Te Reo Māori as a separate subject for three or more hours per week. Of these, 13,759 are Māori, which represents 8.5% of all Māori students.

Early Childhood Education Attendance by Year One Students

There were 59,305 Year one students in July 2005. Schools were unable to establish whether 1,696 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, 5.7% of Year 1 children in 2005 had not regularly attended ECE. This is a slight decrease from the 6% in 2004.

A total of 3,382 Year 1 students attended Kōhanga Reo. Of these, 3,197 students were Māori. This represents 23% of all Māori Year 1 students.

Pasifika Medium Education

A total of 27 schools offer Pasifika-medium education, where a Pasifika language is the medium of instruction for more than 3 hours per week. Of these, 22 were primary, four were secondary schools and one was a composite school.

In July 2005 a total of 1,952 students were involved in Pasifika-medium education. This was a 4.4% decrease since July 2004.

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 2005 are 3,532 in Years 1-6, and 10,033 in Years 7-8. However, some students may be learning more than one language.

Very small numbers are learning Pasifika languages (184) (these students are not involved in a Pasifika-medium programme).

There has been a slight decrease in numbers of students learning European languages: 10,417 in 2005 compared to 10,590 in 2004.

The numbers of students learning Asian languages has dropped from 2,621 students in 2004 to 2,460 students in 2005.

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.

Gender imbalances in curriculum choices continue. Girls predominate in most languages, visual and performing arts and most social science subjects. Boys predominate in most math, technology, science and health and physical education subjects.

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 the proportion of students staying on for a fourth year in secondary school has stabilised. This can be seen by the levelling off of the percentage of students aged 17 in the table below: 58% in 2003, 60% in 2004 and 60% in 2005.

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.