School subject enrolment

This page provides links to data on subjects being studied by secondary school students, and on language learning (other than English or Te Reo Māori) by students in New Zealand primary schools.

Last updated: December 2025

Secondary school subjects (Year 9 and above)

As part of the July roll returns the Ministry collects data on subjects that students study any time during the school year. Students are counted if they study a subject for more than 20 hours over the year. Currently enrolment numbers are collected for 103 different subjects which fall under the following eight learning areas:

  • Language and Languages / Ngā Reo
  • Mathematics / Pāngarau
  • Science / Pūtaiao
  • Technology / Hangarau
  • The Arts / Ngā Toi
  • Social Sciences / Tikanga-ā-iwi
  • Health & Physical Education / Hauora
  • Other

A list of all the subjects can be found on the School subject codes page.

Pivot table: Secondary subject enrolments

This spreadsheet allows you to create your tables by any combination of variables. It has the option of displaying the number of students by subject and year level, and by school and school type variables (such as affiliation), and regional type variables.

Primary school languages (Years 1 to 8)

From 2017, the Ministry no longer publishes this data as it is incomplete.

The Ministry collects data on the number of students at primary year levels who receive language tuition (other than English or Te Reo Māori). If a language was taught on a rotational basis (e.g. term by term), schools are asked to estimate the total number of students in each category who will receive language instruction during the school year.

Information was collected about the following languages:

  • Pacific languages: Samoan, Cook Islands Māori, Tongan, Niuean, Fijian, Tokelauan, Other Pacific languages
  • European languages: French, German, Spanish, Russian
  • Asian languages: Japanese, Chinese languages, Indonesian
  • Others: Other languages

Primary languages 2000-2017