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Student Population: Trends

The Ministry uses school roll data in a number of ways: to fund and staff schools; to support policy analysis, development, and decision making; to monitor the outcomes of the New Zealand education system; and for national and international reporting purposes.

The roll data presented here is based on the 1 July roll returns.  The data includes gender, ethnic group, funding year level, and age.  A small amount of trend information is also available.

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 roll data is available from our statistical pages.  See July School Roll Returns.

Roll by ethnic group and gender, as at 1 July (2021 to 2025)
Group 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Māori 14,496 14,375 14,634 14,946 15,194
Pacific 3,020 3,049 3,186 3,416 3,574
Asian 3,224 3,342 3,775 4,450 4,733
MELAA 699 699 767 853 898
Other 419 379 364 345 326
European/Pākehā 27,330 27,089 27,168 27,058 26,758
International 203 127 197 250 257
Female 20,138 19,891 19,968 20,233 20,202
Male 21,196 20,845 21,216 21,543 21,419
Another gender/not stated n/a n/a 35 37 30
Total 41,334 40,736 41,219 41,813 41,651

Notes:

  1. 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.
  2. MELAA (Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African) students.
  3. 'n/a' = not applicable as Another gender/not stated was not collected prior to 2023.
  4. 'x' = less than 5 students in Another gender/not stated, or if left unmasked the data may lead to deducing other masked values.

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