School Leavers

Introduction

The monitoring of the highest attainment of school leavers is based on the annual 1 March survey of secondary and composite schools. These statistics include all full-time regular students, full-time adult students and special education class students who left school during the period 1 March (previous year) to 28 February (current year), to go on to further education, training, the workforce or other activities.

The school leaver statistics in recent years have reflected a qualifications system that is in transition due to the phased rollout of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) between 2002 and 2004.

From 2004, all school leaver highest attainment statistics were based on the NQF/NCEA but the methodology necessarily involved mapping some attainment under the previous examination system to the NCEA context.

School leavers are defined as full-time, regular, year 9 to year 15 students and special education class students who have finished their schooling and last attended school within the relevant 1 March to 28 February period. Also included are full-time, regular adult students and regular students who have turned 15 years of age and have been granted an exemption fr om enrolment and who have finished their schooling.

Time series discontinuities

From 2002, the school leaver data collection was changed as a result of the introduction of NCEA in 2002.

Also, school leaver data is now based on the concept of achievement, where students have to both participate and achieve credits in order to be counted as having a qualification.

Prior to 2002, school leaver data was based on the concept of participation - if a student sat School Certificate they were deemed to have School Certificate regardless of their grade.

Readers should note that these changes have led to discontinuities with previous time-series.