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School Qualifications: NCEA Level 3

A formal school qualification is a measure of the extent to which young adults have completed a basic prerequisite for higher education and training, and many entry-level jobs.

School leavers are identified from the Ministry of Education's ENROL system, while highest school qualification is obtained from schools and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. Data presented here is for school leavers with NCEA Level 1 and above, level 2 and above and level 3 and above (including a UE Award).

Identical information is available for the region's territorial authorities using the drop down menu above. For other territorial authorities first choose the appropriate region from the drop down menu above. Alternatively a large amount of school leaver data is available from our statistical pages. See School Leavers.

School leavers with at least NCEA level 3 or equivalent by gender and ethnic group (2018-2020)
Group Below NCEA level 3 NCEA level 3 or above Percentage with NCEA level 3 or above
2018 2019 2020 2018 2019 2020 2018 2019 2020
Female 105 102 108 130 154 155 55.3 60.2 58.9
Male 172 159 185 90 94 112 34.4 37.2 37.7
Māori 59 53 46 18 24 26 23.4 31.2 36.1
Pacific 7 6 5 5 2 2 41.7 25.0 28.6
Asian 7 8 2 5 12 12 41.7 60.0 85.7
MELAA x x x x x x x x x
Other x x x x x x x x x
European/Pākehā 222 208 253 198 221 237 47.1 51.5 48.4
Region Total 277 261 293 220 248 267 44.3 48.7 47.7
New Zealand Total 27,463 26,975 24,697 33,574 33,028 35,632 55.0 55.0 59.1

Notes:

  1. ‘x’ = data has been suppressed where there are between 0 and 5 students in the denominator for a specific group, for example Asian students. Where one gender has been suppressed the corresponding gender has also been suppressed. 'na' = not applicable.
  2. Ethnicity is multiple response, that is, students who affiliated in more than one ethnic group have been counted in each ethnic group. Students are only counted once in the total, therefore, the ethnic groups may not sum to the total.
  3. International fee-paying students and adult students (age 19+) are excluded.

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