Summary

Profile & Trends 2015: New Zealand's Tertiary Education System begins with a set of tertiary education highlights from 2015, which include the progress made with government's Better Public Services education targets, the main trends in tertiary education enrolments and important tertiary education events which took place in the first half of 2016.

Chapter 2 describes government-funded tertiary education and training, changes to the tertiary education system in 2015, the organisations that make up the tertiary education sector and how the government-funded tertiary education system works.

Chapter 3 covers New Zealand's tertiary education provision.  It begins with an overview of provision in 2015, followed by descriptions of provider-based tertiary education, industry training, Youth Guarantee and other types of tertiary education provision.  This chapter concludes with a description of the New Zealand Qualifications Framework and the quality assurance of tertiary education.

The postscript (chapter 4) provides an overview of Budget 2016 tertiary education expenditures and the latest student support changes, as well as the early enrolment indications for 2016.

Chapter 5 lists the contact information for key tertiary education agencies, providers, industry training organisations and sector groups. It also contains a list of commonly used definitions and acronyms, as well as technical information to help interpret the analytical material used in the reports. A list of figures and tables is included at the end of this report.

This year's Profile & Trends series represents the 18th annual survey of the tertiary education system to be published by the Ministry of Education.