Another small, but positive, Education shift.
The latest IPSOS poll is anything but good reading for National with Labour favoured to better manage 9 of the top 11 issues – including Education. The respondents are wrong on Education as there is incremental progress at present. Much more should be being done in a range of ways but it is not the same level of disaster created by Hipkins and Tinetti.
Each year I do a data process that includes every high school in NZ across a range of measures based on their leavers data. I am about to get the raw data to do that work. Some full system data is now available and I am really happy to say that there have been improvements.
Some important information is contained in the introduction to the data on Education Counts.
“The attainment of an upper secondary school qualification is linked to labour force status and income levels. Modelling done by the Ministry in 2024 of earnings at age 30 showed income premiums for those attaining a Level 2 qualification, a Level 3 qualification or for meeting the requirements for University Entrance (UE). These were around $10,000 higher for learners with a Level 2 or Level 3 qualification and $23,000 higher for learners with UE compared to those with no qualifications. The findings from the modelling were also consistent with other Ministry research showing adults with no qualifications earned almost 20% less in weekly income and around 12% less in hourly earnings than those with school qualifications.
Every year around 60,000 young people leave school and face choices about what to do next. Not being in employment, further education, or training (NEET) affects around 30% of school leavers overall in the first year after they finish school. School leavers who leave school without at least NCEA Level 2 are more likely to be in this group – almost 50% for leavers with only NCEA Level 1 and almost 70% for leavers with no qualification, compared to around one-third for leavers with NCEA Level 2.”
Overall School Leavers Results
| Peak % | 2024 % | 2025 % | |
| L1 NCEA | 90.2 (2017) | 84.8 | 85.2 |
| L2 NCEA | 82.2 (2020) | 76.9 | 77.8 |
| L3 NCEA or Above | 60.6 (2020) | 56.3 | 59 |
| University Entrance | 43.6 (2020) | 40.8 | 42.8 |
By Ethnicity (2025)
| Asian % | European % | Pasifika % | Maori % | |
| L1 NCEA | 93 | 86.5 | 82 | 74.3 |
| L2 NCEA | 88.4 | 79.5 | 73.5 | 63.3 |
| L3 NCEA or Above | 75.8 | 59.7 | 53.2 | 41.4 |
| University Entrance | 63.7 | 45.1 | 27.3 | 21.7 |
– Over a quarter of Maori youth are leaving with no qualifications.
– At every level Maori do better when learning predominantly in Maori.
By Gender (2025)
| Female % | Male % | |
| L1 NCEA | 86.1 | 84.3 |
| L2 NCEA | 79.3 | 76.3 |
| L3 NCEA or Above | 63.4 | 54.8 |
By Socio-Economic Risk Factors 2025
(NB: With no obvious logic the Ministry of Education breaks the Equity Index range for schools into 7 parts with approximately the same number of students in each. To twist things a little more – the lowest EQI schools are labelled “Fewest” meaning low numbers of “at risk” students, “below average” means not too many at risk students, “above average” means quite a lot of them.)
| L3 NCEA or Above % | |
| Fewest | 85.8 |
| Few | 74.7 |
| Below Average | 65.3 |
| Average | 55.3 |
| Above Average | 53.2 |
| Many | 49.6 |
| Most | 39.2 |
A LONG way to go – especially re ethnicity gaps and the huge range over socio-economics – but clearly the change in trend direction is a positive.
ps: The people on Education Counts (as a part of the Ministry of Education) are outstanding and always good to deal with.