Retention of students in senior secondary schools

Why This Is Important

Completion of upper secondary education is associated with a range of economic and social benefits both in New Zealand and across the OECD. Retention to senior secondary schooling is linked to higher levels of skills and knowledge required for participation in our increasingly knowledge-based society and the wider global community. OECD education ministers have emphasized "Quality education for all" (OECD, 2001) and with improving standards and average achievements, it is likely to be a moving target over the next generations (Hutmacher, 2001).

The positive effect of each additional year of schooling on incomes has been estimated to range from 5 to 10% (Norton et al. 2000). The risk of unemployment for those with no school qualifications or only Year 11 qualifications is higher than for those with Year 12 or Year 13 qualifications. At present there is little systematic evidence about the comparative value of alternatives to senior schooling.

Lashlie (2005) found that one of the factors important for successful school leaving for boys was merely staying at school until the end of the seventh form. This is because it takes boys longer to achieve a high level of maturity and self-management than girls, and that boys’ schools in particular can ‘hold boys steady while the chaos of adolescence sorts itself.’ Simply keeping boys at school (by making school relevant) until they have decided what they want their next step in life to be, can reduce the chances of a boy ‘arriving at a prison gate’.

Indicator

Retention of students in senior secondary schools to age 17

Numerator: (Data Source: Ministry of Education: March School Roll Return)

Total number of school leavers aged 17 or above in a given year, excluding NZAID students (foreign students sponsored by the New Zealand Agency for International Development - a branch of MFAT) and foreign fee-paying students, from schools who submitted unit record school leaver data.

Denominator: (Data Source: Ministry of Education: March School Roll Return)

Total number of school leavers in a given year, excluding NZAID students (foreign students sponsored by the New Zealand Agency for International Development - a branch of MFAT) and foreign fee-paying students, from schools who submitted unit record school leaver data.

Interpretation Issues

For the first time in 2006 most schools used new methods of electronic student roll collection to file disaggregated (unit record) school leaver data. This enabled the accurate estimation of percentages of students remaining at school to their 17th birthday to be calculated for the first time.

For this indicator European/Pākehā refers to people who affiliate as New Zealand European, Other European or European (not further defined). For example, this includes and is not limited to people who consider themselves as Australian (excluding Australian Aborigines), British and Irish, American, Spanish, and Ukrainian.

Prioritisation of ethnicity is when people are allocated to one of the ethnicities they have recorded they affiliate with. This usually occurs when data are collected manually and/or aggregate data returns are collected centrally. This allocation is performed using a predetermined order of ethnic groups. For this indicator ethnicity is prioritised in the order of Māori, Pasifika, Asian, other groups except European/Pākehā, and European/Pākehā.