Education Minister Erica Stanford is preparing to make announcements about NCEA. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A damning Government briefing has raised significant concerns about the credibility of New Zealand’s main secondary school qualification.
The document, obtained exclusively by the Herald, was presented by officials to Education Minister Erica Stanford in June. It comes ahead of the minister announcing what are expected to be substantial proposals for the future of NCEA.
Among the red-light alerts to the minister is that the flexibility built into NCEA, including regarding what assessments students sit, means courses can be structured around those perceived to be “easier” to accumulate credits.
The system encourages students to stockpile credits across often disconnected subjects at the expense of engaging in a “coherent” course that supports a clear pathway for their future, the briefing says.
Students are also primarily achieving the qualification through internal assessments and many are avoiding external examinations. There were more than 250,000 instances last year of students skipping exams because they felt they weren’t necessary.
And as trends worsen, officials are highlighting “concerns about the depth and consistency of subject learning, and the long-term credibility of the qualification”.
In an interview with the Herald, Stanford said decisions would shortly be made to address issues with NCEA and significant options, such as dropping Level 1 entirely, remain on the table.
“There really isn’t an option to do nothing,” the minister said. “I don’t think that tinkering around the edges is going to be something that’s going to get us where we need to be.”
NCEA has in recent years been subject to a reform programme spinning out of work commissioned by the previous Labour Government to ensure the qualification is effectively preparing high school students for future careers and tertiary education.
The coalition Government delayed the implementation of some changes – primarily those affecting Level 2 and 3 – out of concern the redesign was “flawed” and more time was necessary to develop the curriculum.
However, Level 1 changes were already well in train when Stanford came to office in late 2023. Starting last year, there were new literacy and numeracy co-requisites, fewer subjects and streamlined standards.
But the minister said 60% of schools weren’t ready and some stopped providing Level 1, which is optional, as a result.
A review by the Education Review Office (ERO) found that despite the overhaul, Level 1 was “difficult to understand” and not preparing students for future achievement. It said one option could be to “drop it entirely”.
Stanford said ERO “unearthed a lot of things that we weren’t possibly expecting”, not just with Level 1, but the entire qualification. It led to a wider programme, with Stanford working alongside a group of principals from across the country to consider the issues.
Last month she received a briefing from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), which showed a key concern with NCEA relates to its “inherent flexibility” being “overused”. This led to little consistency across student learning and critical areas of knowledge being overlooked.
There is no nationally compulsory NCEA course, meaning schools and students have some freedom to pick and choose which subjects and standards are offered and sat.
While there are now numeracy and literacy co-requisites, officials said there is otherwise “no core learning required to achieve subjects within the qualification”.
“This design feature of NCEA can influence how programmes of learning are constructed, with some being structured around combinations of standards that are perceived to be ‘easier’, to maximise credit accumulation, and help students achieve the minimum 60-credit threshold.”
Additionally, while the new Level 1 was designed to have four assessments for each subject, about two-thirds of schools last year didn’t enrol students for assessment in all four.
Students gather credits from a “wide range” of subjects and standards, which officials said can come at “the expense of coherent course design and clear pathway outcomes”.
Nearly half of Year 12 students who achieved Level 2 last year did so “without engaging in a full programme of coherent subject-based learning”. About a third of Year 12 and 13 students who achieved Level 2 or 3 relied on unit standards from “disparate” subjects.
Unit standards assess students in vocational or industry-related skills rather than traditional curriculum subjects. In 2023, some of the more popular unit standard assessments included “provide basic life support”, “provide life aid” and “produce a personal targeted CV”.
The briefing said: “This pattern reflects a systemic issue where the flexibility of the qualification is being used to prioritise credit accumulation over meaningful learning and clear educational or vocational pathways.”
Stanford told the Herald that New Zealand had wanted to be “world-leading” with its flexible qualification but “nobody followed us” and “we’re out on our own”.
“That flexibility that we were trying to aim for has started to work against us and we need to make some different decisions.”
Officials said there is an “increasingly problematic imbalance” between internal and external assessments, with only 22% of 2024 results being achieved through external exams.
“In an age of AI, issues around the authenticity of internal assessment work have become even more challenging.”
Students are able to avoid exams, “which can mean that critical learning in a subject may not occur”.
“On average, students do not attempt 25% of the external assessments they are entered in for by their school.
“In 2024, there were more than 250,000 instances where students did not sit external exams, largely because students determined they already had sufficient credits to meet qualification requirements.”
Over the past decade, student engagement in external assessments has reduced, the briefing said.
“For the Level 3 core science subjects (chemistry, biology and physics) the proportion of students entered for all three standards in the three-hour examination session in 2015 was 77%. By 2024, it was 49%,” it said.
“This trend raises concerns about the depth and consistency of subject learning, and the long-term credibility of the qualification.”
Stanford said the cost of students not sitting exams was “huge”.
“As parents, we inherently know something’s wrong when your child is not turning up for their exam. Either they’ve got enough credits to pass or they realise they’re not going to pass and there’s no point,” she said.
“That inherent flexibility in the system has led to some of these unintended consequences.”
There is also confusion among parents about how NCEA works, Stanford said, meaning parents struggle to guide their children on the right pathways.
The minister said many schools are ditching Level 1 altogether in favour of the likes of the International Baccalaureate (BC) or Cambridge assessments.
But thousands of children – including Stanford’s own – are still doing NCEA.
“I do not want to be in a position where we don’t have a national qualification that we can all proudly stand behind that is internationally comparable, robust and we know sets students up for success.”
New Zealand has to “arrest that decline” and Stanford is preparing to start talking about proposals in the next month or so.
She made clear “all options are on the table”. Among those laid out by ERO was rethinking how external exams are conducted, reducing flexibility, putting more weight on assessments completed later in the year and potentially scrapping NCEA Level 1.
“We are considering everything that ERO put on the table, and the professional advisory group have considered everything.”
Asked if she risks creating more uncertainty for the sector, Stanford said, “whatever we end up doing, [it needs to be] very well communicated, very well staged and very well resourced”.
“We will work very closely with the sector to ensure that implementation goes very, very well. This is too important not to get right.”
Labour leader and former Education Minister Chris Hipkins told the Herald this week that he believed Level 1 should be targeted at students unlikely to reach Level 3 to provide “a good foundation for going out into things like apprenticeships and other forms of vocational training”.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.