The impact of COVID-19 on tertiary education in NZ: Course completions 2019-2022 Publications
Publication Details
This report is the second in a series that analyses the initial and longer-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tertiary education system in New Zealand. It uses course-level data to look at the impact on attainment in provider-based and workplace-based tertiary education. This analysis represents trends up until the end of 2022, and therefore cannot address the impact of COVID-19 on completion of longer multi-year qualifications.
Author(s): Nicola Marshall, Tertiary System Performance Analysis, Ministry of Education
Date Published: August 2023
Summary
The analysis in this report looks at the demographic and study-related characteristics of learners. The focus is on how completion of individual courses differed between 2019 and 2022 with 2019 chosen as a baseline year as it was the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic commenced in New Zealand.
Provider-based tertiary education [1]
The overall course completion rate[2] for domestic students in provider-based tertiary education in New Zealand declined slightly in 2022 after a long period of very consistent rates. The early COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 had the same overall rate (83 percent) as the two preceding years, but this declined to 81 percent in 2022.
Study-related characteristics, domestic students:
- Course completion rates declined at all levels of study in 2022, more so for Level 1-4 certificates than for other levels, compared both with the previous year and with 2019.
- Universities’ course completion rates reflected the general pattern of bachelors level qualifications, with a slight increase in 2020 to 89 percent, followed by a return to 2019 levels in 2021 (87 percent), and a further decrease to 86 percent in 2022. Te Pūkenga course completion rates were very steady overall, decreasing from 80 percent in 2019 to 79 percent in the following three years. At wānanga the rate declined from 76 percent in 2019 to 65 percent in 2022. Decreases in course completion rates at wānanga were recorded from 2019 to 2022 at all levels of study except bachelors and honours degrees. The overall course completion rate at private training establishments (PTEs) declined to 78 percent in 2022, having been around 80 percent from 2019 to 2021. However, PTEs was the only subsector to record increases in the course completion rates at Levels 1 and 3.
- Among the broad fields of study[3] , fields that had a higher proportion of study at non-degree levels tended to have a greater decline in overall course completion rate from 2019 to 2022, except for Management and Commerce which remained steady.
- Course completion rates decreased in most regions between 2019 and 2022. Rates remained steady in Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury. The regions with the largest decreases in the overall course completion rate were West Coast (down 10 percentage points), Northland (down nine percentage points) and Tasman (down eight percentage points).
- It was not possible to analyse directly the effect of shifts to online learning during the pandemic, since enrolments were not automatically re-classified as extramural where provision went online as a result of COVID-19 restrictions.
Demographic characteristics, domestic students:
- Attainment declined across most age groups between 2019 and 2022, with greater decreases in the course completion rate for those aged 25 years and over.
- Decreases in the overall course completion rate between 2019 and 2022 were similar for all genders and ethnic groups, although rates for Māori declined slightly in 2020 while other groups remained steady or increased.
The overall course completion rate for international students[4] in provider-based tertiary education in New Zealand decreased to 90 percent in 2022, down from 92 percent in 2019.
- Course completion rates were largely stable from 2019 to 2022 for international students studying at bachelors degree and graduate certificate levels. There were declines of four to 10 percentage points at Levels 2 to 4[5].
- The proportion of international equivalent full-time students studying with New Zealand providers while residing overseas increased markedly from three percent in 2019 to 32 percent in 2022. Course completion rates declined slightly more for those residing in New Zealand than those overseas.
- Course completion rates decreased from 2019 and 2022 for all age-groups, ethnic groups and for male and female international students. Decreases were slightly larger for over-25-year-olds compared with 18-24-year-olds; and for Pacific Peoples, European and Other international students, compared with Asian.
Workplace-based tertiary education
Workplace-based learners are split into two groups in this analysis. Apprentices are industry training learners who do substantial training programmes at Level 4 or above. This group includes learners enrolled in New Zealand Apprenticeship programmes, and programmes at equivalent levels and credit loads, as well as the remaining Modern Apprenticeship programmes. Trainees are industry training learners who do short programmes, often at lower levels, and who are not included in any of the apprenticeship categories.
Apprentices
The credit achievement rate[6] for apprentices declined markedly from 85 percent in 2019 to 77 percent in 2020, and again to 67 percent in 2021, having ranged between 84 and 89 percent in the preceding years. The credit achievement rate remained at 67 percent in 2022.
Contextual factors which may have impacted the credit achievement of apprentices over these years include:
- the slowing of economic activity and COVID-19 restrictions which reduced opportunities for workplace-based learning in some sectors,
- a rapid increase in both the total number of apprentices and the proportion of new apprentices, following the introduction of the Apprenticeship Boost Initiative (ABI) and the Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund (TTAF) in 2020,
- the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE), whereby training functions were transitioned from industry training organisations to providers (e.g., Te Pūkenga, PTEs). The transitions started in mid-2021 and were completed by the end of 2022.
Credit achievement in relation to training patterns and demographic characteristics:
- The overall decline in the credit achievement rate for apprentices between 2019 and 2021 partially reflects the increasing proportion of new apprentices, who typically are awarded fewer credits in their first year. However, most of the overall decline reflects a decrease in credits awarded to both new and continuing apprentices.
- Fields of study which had the largest growth in apprentice numbers (Architecture and Building, Engineering and Related Technologies, Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies) tended to record the largest decreases in credit attainment rates, particularly from 2019 to 2021.
- Apprentices who spend some time “on hold”, and those who withdraw from programmes both tend to record lower credit achievement rates during the time that they are still in training, than those whose training is not interrupted in this way. The proportion of apprentices “on hold” increased markedly during COVID-19 lockdown periods in both 2020 and 2021. Both the “on hold” proportion and the proportion of apprentices withdrawing have continued to increase in 2022.
- Credit achievement rates for apprentices in 2022 varied from 84 percent in Marlborough to 59 percent in Northland. Rates declined in all regions between 2019 and 2021, and remained below 2019 levels in 2022, except in Marlborough.
- When looking at age-group and ethnicity, there was little variation in the patterns of changes to credit achievement rates for apprentices from 2019 to 2022. Rates remained lower for Māori and Pacific Peoples apprentices and for those aged 19 year or under.
- Credit achievement rates were nearly the same for male apprentices compared with female apprentices in 2022, reflecting a much larger decrease from 2019 for male apprentices.
Trainees
The credit achievement rate for trainees was 63 percent in 2022, a decline of five percentage points from the previous year. The rate had been steady from 2018 to 2021 at around 68 percent, after declining from a peak of 74 percent in 2016.
- Architecture and Building recorded the largest decrease in the credit achievement rate for trainees between 2019 and 2022. Patterns of changes in rates varied considerably between different fields. The following fields all recorded increases from 2019 to 2022: Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies; Creative Arts; Food, Hospitality and Personal Services; and Management and Commerce.
- Credit achievement rates for trainees in 2021 varied from 74 percent in Wellington to 57 percent in the West Coast region. Rates were fairly steady in most regions between 2019 and 2021. However, 2022 saw decreases in Auckland, Canterbury, Manawatū-Whanganui, Marlborough, Nelson, Otago, Southland and Tasman. 2022 rates were slightly higher in 2022 than in 2019 in Gisborne, Taranaki, Waikato, and West Coast.
- Credit achievement rates for trainees decreased from 2019 to 2022 for learners in every age-group except those aged 19 years and under.
- The credit achievement rate for female trainees increased from 2019 to 2021, but declined sharply in 2022 to 64 percent, only slightly higher than for male trainees (63 percent).
- Credit achievement rates for European, Māori and Pacific Peoples trainees declined steadily from 2019 to 2022. Rates for Asian, MELAA and trainees in the Other ethnic group all increased from 2019 to 2021 but recorded larger-than-average decreases from 2021 to 2022.
It should be noted that reporting of credit achievement for workplace-based learners is not directly linked to educational provision in the same way as for provider-based enrolments. Therefore, it is not possible to be confident that a decline in the number of credits achieved necessarily reflects a decline in training received rather than, for example, delays and disruptions to the assessment and reporting processes over the years covered in this analysis. This picture will become clearer over the next year or two as the changes associated with the RoVE process are bedded in.
Footnotes
- Provider-based tertiary indication covers enrolments in universities, Te Pūkenga, wānanga, and private training establishments that received Student Achievement Component funding, and/or had students with student loans or allowances, and/or Youth Guarantee programmes.
- EFTS-weighted proportion of courses (distinct modules, papers or units of study) completed successfully. Courses which are wholly research-based are excluded from this analysis. See the accompanying tables for more detail on how course completion rates are calculated. Further data on tertiary qualification completions, attrition and progression is available at Tertiary achievement and attainment | Education Counts.
- Field of study in this analysis is determined at the course level, rather than the predominant field of study of the overall qualification.
- This analysis includes international students from all funding sources and is thus not directly comparable to the rate calculated for domestic students.
- International student numbers fell by around half overall and by 70 percent from 2019 to 2022 at Levels 1 to 4, due to the COVID-19 border closure from March 2020, which barred entry for all except New Zealand citizens and permanent residents. By 2022, numbers at Level 1 were too small to calculate the course completion rate.
- The credit achievement rate is calculated as the total credits awarded divided by the amount of training funded. Although these rates are expressed as percentages, the rate can sometimes exceed 100 percent – this is because the number of credits awarded in a given year and the amount of training funded are only indirectly linked.
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