NCEA

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the major qualification for New Zealand secondary school students. Subjects are broken down into a number of standards, with each standard having a credit value as opposed to a mark. Students achieve credits towards their NCEA qualification at Level 1, 2 and 3 through both Achievement Standards and Unit Standards. Once a total of 80 credits has been achieved, students are eligible to receive an NCEA certificate for that level of study.

ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS
The achievement of students in some subjects will be assessed through Achievement Standards. These identify the learning outcomes students must achieve, plus the expected national standards of work. Some of the standards will be assessed internally by subject teachers during the year and some will be assessed by external examination at the end of the year. There are four possible grades students can be awarded: Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence. Each standard has a number of credits available, and approximately 20 credits are available for each subject.

UNIT STANDARDS
Unit Standards are internally assessed. Some courses/subjects have a mix of both Achievement Standards and Unit Standards, while subjects which have a high practical content (such as Hospitality or Trade Training) are often assessed by Unit Standards. There are two possible grades students that can be awarded for Unit Standards – either Not Achieved or Achieved. Like Achievement Standards, Unit Standards also have a credit value that counts towards the NCEA.

NCEA QUALIFICATIONS
There are three NCEA qualifications – Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

  • For students to be awarded NCEA Level 1 they must achieve 80 credits. Of these, 10 credits must be in literacy standards (reading and writing) and 10 credits in numeracy (maths) standards.
  • For students to be awarded NCEA Level 2 they must achieve 80 credits, 60 of which must be from Level 2 standards. The Level 1 literacy or numeracy requirements must be met to gain Level 2.
  • For students to be awarded NCEA Level 3 they must achieve 80 credits, 60 of which must be from Level 3 standards. The Level 1 literacy and numeracy requirements must be met for this qualification.

UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE
To qualify to study for a degree course at a New Zealand university or other tertiary course provider such as a polytechnic you will need at least:

  • 14 credits in each of three approved subjects at Level 3

AND

  • Literacy – 10 credits at Level 2 or above, made up of
     – 5 credits in reading
     – 5 credits in writing

AND

  • Numeracy – 10 credits at Level 1 or above.

Credits for University Entrance can be accumulated over more than one year.

CERTIFICATE ENDORSEMENT
NCEA can be ‘endorsed’ if results are of a high standard. For example, a student would be awarded “NCEA Level 1 with Excellence” if they gained 50 credits or more at Excellence. If a student gained 50 credits or more at Merit (or a combination of Merit and Excellence), they would be awarded “NCEA Level 1 with Merit”.

NEW ZEALAND SCHOLARSHIP
The New Zealand Scholarship qualification is an award that is additional to the NCEA Level 3 qualification. It is assessed through additional external assessments. For more detail on New Zealand Scholarship, click here https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/scholarship/index.html

NCEA RESULTS

In January, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority issues students with an NCEA Record of Learning for each subject. On it will be recorded:

  • The Achievement Standards and /or Unit Standards the student entered
  • The credit value of each standard
  • If the standard is internally or externally assessed
  • The grade achieved
  • The number of credits gained in each standard
  • The qualification gained
  • Whether the certificate is endorsed, with a Merit or Excellence award

MULTI-LEVEL STUDY
One of the positive features of NCEA is that it encourages multi-level study – that is, it is now very common for students to study courses at more than one level of NCEA at the same time according to their achievement profile.