About the Disability Action Plan
In September 2024, we launched the Disability Action Plan. This plan has 4 key outcome statements:
- disabled learners experience barrier-free external and internal NCEA assessments
- disabled learners experience barrier-free tertiary education
- NZQA's products and services meet disabled customers’ needs
- NZQA is a disability confident employer.
We have a range of actions to help us to achieve these outcomes.
This page contains the Disability Action Plan in full. You can read it online or download it in PDF and easy read formats.
Download the Disability Action Plan
Disability Action Plan 2024 to 2027 [PDF, 5.2 MB]
Accessible formats
On this page
Why we need a Disability Action Plan
Our Disability Action Plan seeks to support disabled learners and NZQA kaimahi.
The actions set out in the plan will support NZQA to improve its products and services, as well as its workplace, to become more accessible and inclusive.
NCEA
Our goal
Disabled learners experience barrier-free external and internal NCEA assessments.
We will
- Increase Universal Design for learning principles in NCEA external assessments.
- Increase students’ ability to use their own assistive technology in NCEA external assessments.
- Support assessors’ understanding of equitable assessment practices for NCEA internal assessments.
- Increase visibility of support available to disabled learners.
- Improve data and insights on accessibility of assessments.
What does this mean?
- Students will be able to easily understand assessments and connect with the content.
- Students will be able to access text-to-speech in their assessments, so they can hear and read the questions.
- Students will have flexibility in NCEA internal assessments. For example, by showing their knowledge through a presentation or performance rather than an essay.
- Students will find it easier to apply for, and get, Special Assessment Conditions.
- NZQA will measure how well our assessments are working for disabled learners.
Tertiary
Our goal
Disabled learners experience barrier-free tertiary education.
We will
- Monitor providers’ practices supporting underserved learners, including disabled learners.
- Share good practice guidance on supporting disabled learners.
What does this mean?
- NZQA regulates non-university tertiary providers. We will assess if providers are making their facilities and services more accessible and if providers are meeting tertiary learners’ diverse needs.
- Through monitoring tertiary organisations, we will meet with providers and learners to understand what is working, and what is not. From this, we will create guidance to show what 'good' looks like, which providers can use to reflect on, and improve their practices.
All customers
Our goal
NZQA’s products and services meet disabled customers’ needs.
We will
- Have a disabled learner voice panel to gain feedback on how we can improve our products and services.
- Strengthen our accessibility standards including our website and chatbot.
What does this mean?
- We will hear first-hand from learners about what they think about NZQA. We will use their feedback to make improvements.
- It will be easier for customers to contact us, for example, customers will be able to use a screen-reader to have our website read out loud, or have their question answered without picking up the phone.
Internal
Our goal
NZQA is a disability confident employer.
We will:
- Increase the number of disabled kaimahi working at NZQA.
- Update our recruitment processes and practices.
- Upskill our kaimahi in their disability confidence.
What does this mean?
- We will monitor and measure the diversity of our kaimahi. This will help us to understand the diversity of our employees, and what we can do to support a more diverse workforce.
- We will improve how accessible and inclusive it is to apply to work at NZQA, and how accessible it is for new kaimahi to start their employment journey with us.
- By kaimahi understanding more about disabilities, and the range of diverse learners we serve, we will change the way we do business as usual – to be more inclusive.