The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has released provisional NCEA attainment data from 2024.
Attainment data is provisional at this stage, as students have an opportunity to request a review or reconsideration of their exam papers, additional results can be received from summer school programmes, and schools may submit corrected or late-reported results from internal assessment.
Attainment of NCEA Levels 2, 3 and University Entrance
Provisional 2024 NCEA Level 2 attainment by students in Year 12 is 72.7% compared to 73.2% in 2023.
Year 13 provisional attainment of NCEA Level 3 is 68.2% compared to 67.7% in 2023, and Year 13 University Entrance (UE) attainment is 48.2% compared to 49.7% in 2023.
“With finalised attainment figures typically higher than provisional figures, 2024 attainment of NCEA Levels 2 and 3 is expected to be slightly higher than in 2023, and attainment of UE is expected to be similar,” says NZQA Deputy Chief Executive, Assessment, Jann Marshall.
Participation and attainment of NCEA Level 1
NCEA Level 1 was a new qualification in 2024, with a 20-credit literacy and numeracy co-requisite and fewer, larger achievement standards and different methods of assessment.
45,038 of the 70,250 enrolled Year 11 students participated in a full assessment programme towards NCEA Level 1 (entered for 80+ credits). Of the participating students, 70.0% (31,542) attained the qualification. It is expected that this will increase by 1 to 1.5 percentage points once results are finalised. In 2023, 81.9% of students who participated in a full NCEA Level 1 attained the qualification.
The 12 percentage point decrease in attainment for students participating in a full NCEA Level 1 is a result of two key drivers. It primarily reflects the tightened Literacy and Numeracy | Te Reo Matatini me te Pāngarau co-requisite requirement, and the changing composition of students participating.
Reporting NCEA Level 1 attainment
NZQA is changing the way it reports on attainment for Year 11 students at NCEA Level 1 to better account for the number of enrolled students who are not entered for a full NCEA Level 1 assessment programme.
“In 2023, 75% of Year 11 students participated in a full NCEA Level 1 programme. In 2024, the percentage participating has dropped to 64%, as a growing number of schools choose not to offer the optional NCEA Level 1, either at all or in its entirety,” Jann Marshall says.
“At a national level, it is no longer useful to compare data using all students enrolled at Year 11, with a third of these students not participating in Level 1 last year. In recent years, those who enrolled but did not participate were included in our data. This is no longer the case for Level 1,” Jann Marshall says.
Instead, NZQA will report Year 11 NCEA Level 1 attainment based on the population of Year 11 students participating in a full NCEA Level 1 assessment programme (i.e. attainment as a proportion of the students entered for 80+ credits at Level 1 or above).