What is an adverse event?
An adverse event is an uncontrollable event of such proportions or intensity that has a direct and significant prolonged impact on a school and student.
Guidelines have been developed to help schools to:
- manage assessment during and after an adverse event
- support students leaving school who have just missed achieving their highest level qualification due to the event by applying to NZQA for unspecified credits.
The links on this page include resources to assist schools with managing assessment processes, their applications for unspecified credits, and communication with students and their community.
Core principles for delivering assessment during and after an adverse event
The core principles for schools to deliver credible qualification outcomes for affected students are:
- consider the well-being of students
- maintain the integrity of the NCEA qualification
- manage disruption to learning
- support students to achieve the best possible educational outcomes
- prioritise the needs of target groups, such as school leavers
- provide equity of opportunity
- recognise learning that has taken place, for which no formal assessment has been possible.
- adhere to the principles of natural justice, fairness, and transparency
- acknowledge that there will be ongoing impacts arising from disrupted teaching and learning that may not be able to be fully mitigated within the academic year.
The adverse events framework
The adverse events framework may be used to identify who intervenes and when:
On this page
School mitigations
Where an adverse event has prevented students from accessing assessment opportunities, in most cases, schools can use the flexibility of the NCEA qualification to mitigate the impact of the event and meet individual student needs.
Options include:
- using credits gained at one level to count towards more than one certificate
- removing prerequisites to reduce the burden of completing lower-level assessments
- reviewing and modifying the assessment programme if required. For example, reducing the number, range and timing of standards offered to students and focusing on what is required for the next step in a student pathway
- applying missed and late assessment processes to internal assessment
- recognition of alternative learning or prior learning
- enabling students to meet the requirements of more than one NCEA qualification within a single year
- offering multi-level assessment both within an individual subject or course, or across the subjects or courses in an individual student's assessment programme
- using hybrid, online or remote learning and assessment, where appropriate.
- using evidence gathering templates for internals to remove the need for formal assessment events, following moderation requirements
- students completing a qualification by undertaking additional assessment at summer school or returning to school in the following year to undertake further study and assessment, and on application, be awarded the NCEA qualification before the end of the year
- students completing an NCEA qualification while undertaking tertiary study after leaving school.
NZQA mitigation, unspecified credits available to eligible school leavers
Students who have experienced ongoing disruption due to a significant adverse event may be eligible for unspecified credits.
These guidelines assist schools and students to make applications by:
- clarifying the eligibility criteria, and
- assisting schools and students to identify the supporting evidence required for applications for unspecified credits.
NZQA approves entitlement to unspecified credits to students in schools who meet the eligibility criteria due to prolonged significant unforeseen circumstances.
Where mitigation measures are undertaken and a school leaver misses out on the qualification by up to 5 credits, a school can apply to NZQA for an unspecified credits entitlement.
The unspecified credits process applies where:
- a student experiences prolonged effects from an adverse event (20 to 29 days of prolonged disruption)
- the school has put in place mitigation measures that are outlined in the mitigation checklist
- the student is leaving school and requires up to 5 credits to achieve their highest-level qualification.
When an event occurs, the school should first check with their NZQA School Relationship Manager to establish whether it meets the definition of an adverse event.
Refer to the adverse event decision-making process to identify which students are eligible for unspecified credits.
What are unspecified credits?
Unspecified credits:
- can only be used once to achieve the student’s highest qualification available within the current academic year
- do not appear on a student's Record of Achievement
- do not have a grade attached to them (A, M, E)
- are not assigned to any subject or course
- cannot contribute to the University Entrance Level 3 approved subject requirements, or literacy or numeracy requirements
- cannot be used in subsequent years towards further qualifications.
How to decide if a student is eligible
Apply to NZQA when students meet the following criteria:
- The student is leaving school at the end or during the academic year, and
- has experienced 20 to 29 days of prolonged disruption during the current academic year due to the impact of the event
- is likely to achieve within 5 credits of the requirement for the highest level of qualification available for the current academic year.
- The school has mitigations in place from at least 3 of the interventions listed in the mitigation checklist.
How to apply for unspecified credits for eligible school leavers
The school must:
- submit applications for unspecified credits for all eligible students by a specified date, and
- retain the application form and any supporting information, including attendance records, for 1 year following the application for audit purposes.
Adverse event credit application form [XLSX, 31 KB]
NZQA response to an application
NZQA will work with the school to determine student eligibility.
Based on evidence of the severity of impact, NZQA will:
- notify the school that access to unspecified credits will be available for students who meet the eligibility criteria
- request recorded evidence for students who meet the eligibility criteria, if this has not already been submitted by the school
- calculate the number of unspecified credits each eligible student requires for the award of a NCEA qualification just prior to results release, up to the agreed maximum
- include these unspecified credits when awarding a qualification.
After results release, if a school determines that a school leaver is eligible, but has not applied for unspecified credits, the school can contact the School Relationship Manager, to request for retrospective application.
Recording evidence of eligibility for unspecified credits [PDF, 132 KB]
Why applications may be declined
NZQA may decline a school's application that does not meet the criteria for eligibility for unspecified credits due to an adverse event.
Similarly, if there is evidence that the school has not identified affected students and provided them with appropriate interventions, NZQA reserves the right to withhold student results while the outcome of a quality assurance review is decided.
Communicating with the school community
When NZQA approves unspecified credits as an appropriate intervention to an adverse event, the school can communicate to their community the availability and requirement criteria for eligible students.
The timing of communications will depend on the time of the year and approval by NZQA.
School Relationship Managers will provide practical guidance around communications to the community.
How NZQA supports schools and students
NZQA's School Relationship Managers are available to support schools affected by an adverse event.
Schools should contact their School Relationship Manager to discuss options, clarify next steps and determine any assistance needed to maintain continuity of assessment.
Where necessary, a response team may be set up to work with a school to implement appropriate assessment interventions. This team will include the School Relationship Manager and Ministry of Education representation to support assessment-related decisions.
Where the school expects to apply for unspecified credits, we will work with them to identify that they have at least 3 mitigation measures in place.
NZQA and Ministry of Education-managed interventions
Events with an impact on maintaining fair access to assessment for qualifications may range from a small-scale disruption such as a local emergency or outbreak of a notifiable disease within the school, through to the wide-ranging aftereffects of a natural disaster like an earthquake destroying school buildings and displacing the local community.
Events occurring after 1 October are managed through the derived grades at scale process. If the school is closed for a prolonged length of time, these days can be used towards the 20 to 29 day disruption threshold.
Following a large-scale critical event, such as the global COVID-19 pandemic, NZQA will work alongside the Ministry (as the NCEA qualification owner) to implement changes to qualifications settings where appropriate.
The highest possible intervention managed by NZQA and the Ministry is modification to the qualification requirements following a nationwide, critical event that closes schools for 30 or more school days during which students have no access to teaching, learning and assessment.
In exceptional circumstances, changes to qualifications settings may be implemented for events affecting one or more regions. This might also require NZQA to liaise with Universities New Zealand and the university vice chancellors to consider amending University Entrance requirements.
NZQA will advise schools in this instance.
Risks to the quality of qualifications
While awarding unspecified credits may be well intentioned and welcomed by students, it may still be unwarranted, excessive, or lead to the following unintended consequences.
Academic disadvantage
This could affect students relying on the qualification for further education or training, specifically:
- students may lack the preparation needed for their chosen course of study
- students who miss parts of a subject or course may require additional learning support of a type that is not readily available when they need it.
Process failures
These could result in student dissatisfaction as well as academic disadvantage, specifically:
- students may have inappropriate expectations about eligibility
- students may not be ready for tertiary study and may incur costs for courses they have entered if they have not satisfactorily completed required course or curriculum content.
Loss of qualification integrity
An inappropriate award of credits could pose a risk to the integrity and reputation of the qualification awarded. Specifically, if students have not engaged with knowledge and enquiry at a level consistent with the level of qualification involved.
These risks can be mitigated by careful adherence to the eligibility criteria.
Derived grades at scale
Derived grades at scale apply when a single or series of events has an impact on multiple students’ completion of an examination or external assessment.
NZQA's Chief Executive (or their delegate) must approve the circumstances for derived grade at scale.
Derived grades at scale are available for NCEA external assessments only. They are not available for New Zealand Scholarship assessments as Scholarship is a competitive award.
Schools are required to regularly report to NZQA quality assured grades derived from practice assessment of externally assessed standards. NZQA uses these grades to report the better result of that achieved by the student in the external assessment or the derived grade reported to NZQA.
Unlike derived grades for an individual, there is no application form for each individual student to complete.