The information on this page applies to:
- domestic learners at tertiary education providers
- international learners at primary, secondary and tertiary education providers.
It can also help learners’ parents and guardians raise any concerns with education providers.
On this page
What can I do if something's not right?
If something’s not right, your education provider is in the best position to respond to your concerns and to remedy the situation for you.
You must follow their full complaints and appeals process so they can properly look into what’s happened and work with you on a solution.
You should follow that process all the way through, along with any appeals process.
Your education provider is in the best position to address your concerns quickly and to remedy the situation for you.
Tips for resolving a complaint with your education provider
Sometimes navigating a complaints process with your provider while you’re experiencing difficulties could be challenging.
Consider these tips as you work with your education provider to resolve your concerns.
What to do if your concerns are not resolved by the education provider
If you have followed and come to the end of the provider’s complaint process but are not satisfied with the outcome, you can inform NZQA or another external body.
Whether we can follow up on your concerns would depend on the nature of the issues as well as our resourcing and investigative priorities.
Here is a list of organisations that can deal with the different kinds of issues learners might experience while studying:
Telling NZQA about your concerns
We are responsible for:
- quality assuring tertiary education providers
- administering the Code of Pastoral Care.
The Code of Pastoral Care covers our expectations for learner safety and wellbeing. It also applies to international learners at New Zealand primary and secondary schools.
If you believe your provider hasn’t met NZQA’s requirements, you can let us know. We are not a dispute resolution or advocacy service and can’t offer personal remedies such as such as compensation, an apology from the provider, re-enrolment, re-marking of your work, or disciplinary action against a tutor or other learners.
Your feedback helps us to monitor provider performance and improve outcomes for learners, employers and industry.
You can report any concerns to us about the quality of education or safety and wellbeing at a specific education provider. Information you provide supports us in monitoring of the quality and integrity of New Zealand qualifications and the pastoral care of learners.
When we investigate your concerns
We assess all concerns we receive, but we are unable to investigate all of them.
Whether or not we investigate your concerns will depend on a number of factors, such as:
- other information we have about the education provider
- the severity of the issue
- how long ago it occurred
- whether it is systemic in its impact on learners or if it’s something more specific to your circumstances.
We prioritise investigating issues that have the greatest risk and impact on educational quality and pastoral care.
When we don't investigate your concerns
We understand it may be disappointing for you if we do not investigate your concerns due to other priorities, but we value all information you give us.
If we do not investigate your concerns, we may use the information you provide to:
- inform future regulatory activities
- broaden the scope of current regulatory activities
- refer the matter to other government agencies
- keep a record of the information for future reference.