NZQA’s complaint process is for learners who want to escalate a complaint about a possible breach of NZQA regulations that affected their experience studying at an education provider.
If you have concerns about an education provider but you are not a learner, or you do not want to go through our formal complaint process, we might still be able to help.
NZQA’s role
Investigating complaints about providers is part of NZQA’s role as an education agency and the code administrator.
Complaints allow NZQA to monitor the quality and integrity of New Zealand qualifications to keep them credible and robust, and to ensure providers have policies and practices in place that support student safety and wellbeing.
When you submit a complaint to NZQA, we will give your complaint careful consideration to see if your complaint issues fall under the regulations that NZQA can enforce.
Most of these regulations identify the processes and practices that your education provider needs to have and requires them to be fair and equitable when they work through those processes with you.
On this page
Our complaints process
Find out how we investigate complaints
How we investigate complaints about an education provider
Other organisations you can contact
Find out if there are other organisations that might be able to help you
Other organisations that may be able to help you
Go through the provider's complaint process before coming to NZQA
Before coming to us with a complaint, make sure you have followed the education provider's complaints process and worked with them to resolve it.
If that process did not resolve the issue, you can complain to NZQA.
We will confirm this before we start to investigate a complaint.
Make a formal complaint to NZQA
1
Download the formal complaint form
Download the formal complaints form and put in all the details of your complaint.
Make sure you give contact details for everyone who is covered in the complaint.
2
Collect evidence for your complaint
Include evidence that will support your complaint and let NZQA fully investigate it.
3
Send the form and your evidence to NZQA
You can email it all to risk@nzqa.govt.nz.
You can also post it all to:
Risk Management, NZQA
PO Box 160
Wellington, 6140
Get advice on resolving your concerns
Sometimes we can resolve an issue without a formal complaint.
Let us know about the issue and we may be able to fix the problem.
Once you submit the form, we will contact you within 2 working days.
Note:
Submitting this form does not mean that you are submitting a formal complaint to NZQA.
Your completed form will be sent to NZQA’s Risk Management team, who will then assess the information and advise you on the options to resolve or escalate the issue.