Transient students
This measure includes all students recognised as moving school twice or more between 1 March to 1 November each year.
Last updated: September 2026
Indicator
A total of 2,129 students (2.7 per 1,000) were recognised as being transient during 2025. This was a decrease from 2,428 transient students (2.9 per 1,000) in 2024.
Figure 1: The transience rate decreased in 2025
Transience rate by ethnic group
Between 2024 and 2025 the transience rate decreased for ākonga Māori, Pacific students, Asian students and European/Pākehā students, and increased for students in the Middle Eastern, Latin American and African (MELAA) and Other ethnicities.
The transience rate for ākonga Māori was 5.8 per 1,000 students. This was more than twice the national rate. The rates per 1,000 students were 2.9 for Pacific students, 2.7 for MELAA, 2.1 for European/Pākehā students, 1.1 for Asian students and 2.4 for students with Other ethnicities.
Figure 2: Between 2024 and 2025, the transience rate decreased for ākonga Māori, Pacific, Asian and European/Pākehā
Cumulative transience in primary-aged children
Transience in primary-aged children can also be measured by examining the cumulative movements of children over a multi-year time period. This differs from the transience measure previously used which looks at movements within a given year.
By examining a cohort of 5-year-olds in 2020, (see Table 1), we can see how many school movements these students had over the six-year period before they reached their first natural schooling transitions (i.e. before they reached year 7, when many children transition from a contributing (year 1-6) school into other types of school).
In their starting year, 0.3% of this 2020 cohort had two or more movements. In this first year there is a shorter period in which to make these moves, since children start school throughout the year as they enter through different cohorts.
By the end of 2025, the cohort’s sixth year since starting school, 12.2% of students had moved school two or more times. This is a decrease from the 2019 cohort, where the rate was 12.8%.
| School movements | 2020 | 2020-2021 | 2020-2022 | 2020-2023 | 2020-2024 | 2020-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 movements | 152 | 976 | 2,123 | 3,107 | 3,906 | 4,521 |
| 3 movements | 14 | 188 | 520 | 905 | 1,285 | 1,617 |
| 4 movements | 1 | 45 | 201 | 363 | 539 | 716 |
| 5 movements | 0 | 10 | 62 | 154 | 236 | 359 |
| 6+ movements | 0 | 5 | 33 | 101 | 213 | 333 |
| Total students with 2 or more school movements | 167 | 1,224 | 2,939 | 4,630 | 6,179 | 7,537 |
| Total students in cohorts | 61,593 | 61,593 | 61,593 | 61,593 | 61,593 | 61,593 |
| The percentage of students with 2 or more school movements | 0.3% | 2.0% | 4.8% | 7.5% | 10.0% | 12.2% |
Transient students
Students need stability in their schooling to experience continuity, belonging and support so that they stay interested and engaged in learning. Providing stability in schooling is a greater challenge when there are students leaving and enrolling with school part-way through a term or school year.
Students have better outcomes if they do not move school regularly. There is evidence that student transience has a negative impact on student outcomes, both in New Zealand and overseas. Research suggests that students who move home and/or school frequently are more likely to under-achieve in formal education when compared with students who have a more stable school life.
A study found that school movement had an even stronger effect on educational success than residential movement. There is also evidence that transience can have negative effects on student behaviour, and on short-term social and health experiences (James, 2008).
Time series
This spreadsheet provides numbers and rates of transient students for a range of dimensions (such as regional council, socioeconomic barrier, ethnicity) across time in an easy to use format.
- Time series: Transient students (2012-2025) [MS Excel 108kB]
The measures
Indicator definition: Rate of transient students
Rate of transient students (per 1,000 students) is based on movements within a year
Numerator:
Number of students (excluding International Fee paying students and adult students (older than 19) who changed school twice or more during the period of 1 March to 1 November.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: ENROL)
Denominator:
Total number of students (excluding International Fee paying students and adult students (older than 19) who attended school on July 1st of each respective year. This is a roll count made using ENROL, not the July roll return.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: ENROL)
Interpretation considerations
Transience has only been examined for the period 1 March to 1 November.
Children who started school part way through the measurement period were counted in this indicator, both in the denominator and, if they had two or more moves during the period, the numerator of the rate. Starting school for the first time did not count towards the school moves for these children.
Age is taken as the age that a student was on 1 March. Those children that were under 5 years old at that date are not included in analyses by age. Since students tend to start school when they turn 5-years-old rather than at the beginning of a school year, these students starting school later in the year have had less time within the measurement period to move schools, resulting in incomparable data.
For school-based measures (such as socioeconomic status, regional council, territorial authority), students are counted once for each category for which they attended.
Home-schooling is counted as a school for the purposes of this indicator, though is generally only included under totals when examining geographically related variables.
Indicator definition: Cumulative movement for primary-aged students
Numerator:
Cumulative count, at the end of each year, of students in the 2020 cohort who moved school twice or more since starting at their first school.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: ENROL)
Denominator:
All students who started school at 5 years of age in 2020.
(Data source: Ministry of Education: ENROL)
Definitions and data dimensions
Age
The age of students is between 5 and 19 years old.
School authority
Whether students are from a state or state-integrated school.
Ethnic group
Total Response Ethnicity
This indicator uses total response ethnicity for reporting. Total response ethnicity is when people who have been identified in more than 1 ethnic group have been counted in each ethnic group. For the New Zealand total each student is counted only once. Total response ethnicity has been used for every year in the time series for this indicator.
For this indicator European/Pākehā refers to people who affiliate as New Zealand European, Other European or European (not further defined). For example, this includes and is not limited to people who consider themselves as Australian (excluding Australian Aborigines), British and Irish, American, Spanish and Ukrainian.
Gender
The gender of the students, as recorded in ENROL.
Education region
These are twelve administrative regions created by the Ministry of Education and aligned with the Ministry's 10 local offices. Students are included in the education area of the last school they were enrolled with. In 2023 the Auckland region was split into 3 education areas, Tāmaki Herenga Tāngata (north and west Auckland), Tāmaki Herenga Manawa (central and east Auckland) and Tāmaki Herenga Waka (south and southwest Auckland).
Regional council
The regional council area the school of the student is located in. Regional council boundaries are defined by Statistics New Zealand.
Territorial authority
The territorial authority area that each student’s school is located in. Territorial authority boundaries are defined by Statistics New Zealand. Auckland Territorial Authority is further broken down into local board.
Equity Index Band
The Equity Index Bands are an indicator of the relative degree of socio-economic barriers to educational achievement faced by students at the schools in each band, and is used as a tool for analysing and reporting on socio-economic trends in education data. Equity Index Bands are derived from the Equity Index used for school funding. There are 7 Equity Index Bands each containing a similar number of schools. In order of increasing socio-economic barriers the bands are named: “Fewest”, “Few”, “Below Average”, “Average”, “Above Average”, “Many” and “Most”.
The school equity index has been in use since 2023. For 2019 to 2023 the Equity Index Bands are derived from the 2023 Equity index numbers in order to provide a time series.
More information on the Equity Index Bands and Groups can be found here.
Equity Index Group
There are 3 groups of schools formed by collapsing the 7 Equity Index Bands to form 3 groups: Fewer socio-economic barriers, moderate socio-economic barriers and most socio-economic barriers.
More information on the Equity Index Bands and Groups can be found here.