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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 843 901 750 1,040 997 1,122 55.2 52.5 59.9
Male 1,253 1,116 1,051 897 842 933 41.7 43.0 47.0
Māori 1,083 1,052 933 618 583 637 36.3 35.7 40.6
Pacific 113 109 111 76 74 96 40.2 40.4 46.4
Asian 54 73 73 160 152 215 74.8 67.6 74.7
MELAA 16 9 18 13 9 26 44.8 50.0 59.1
Other 44 50 57 46 51 43 51.1 50.5 43.0
European/Pākehā 1,118 1,137 1,004 1,287 1,224 1,363 53.5 51.8 57.6
Region Total 2,096 2,017 1,801 1,937 1,839 2,055 48.0 47.7 53.3
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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