EER is the independent review of tertiary education organisations (TEOs) by NZQA.
It's part of our evaluative quality assurance framework and helps us make sure that non-university tertiary education in Aotearoa is high quality.
We review all non-university tertiary providers in New Zealand. Universities are reviewed by the Academic Quality Agency.
In EER, we evaluate an organisation's educational performance and capability in self-assessment.
After an EER, we categorise a TEO based on these evaluations and our level of confidence in the TEO. The categories are:
- highly confident
- confident
- not yet confident
- not confident.
TEOs are scheduled to have an EER at least once every 4 years. If we're less confident in a TEO, it has EERs more often.
EER reports are public information and shared online.
On this page
Important parts to EER
1
Self-assessment
TEOs self-assess before an EER. They give us their findings and we use these when we complete our review.
Self-assessment isn't optional, it's required under our quality assurance rules. It's not just for us though, self-assessment helps TEOs continuously improve.
2
Key evaluation questions (KEQs)
The KEQs cover important aspects of education, such as programme content, design, delivery and learner outcomes.
All TEOs answer these questions in an EER, and they help us decide how well a provider performs and self-assesses.
3
Tertiary evaluation indicators (TEIs)
TEIs show what 'good' can look like in tertiary education and training.
Providers use TEIs in self-assessment. We use TEIs to find evidence of a provider's performance and capability in self-assessment.
EER's regulatory foundation
The EER process is governed by the quality assurance rules. These rules contain in-depth information about our requirements.
Quality Assurance (including External Evaluation and Review (EER)) Rules 2022
Choose your approach to EER
Te Hono o Te Kahurangi lets you engage with NZQA using Māori approaches and values.
If your organisation uses kaupapa Māori or teaches mātauranga Māori, you may prefer the Te Hono o Te Kahurangi approach to EER.
If you don't use kaupapa Māori or teach mātauranga Māori, you may prefer the standard approach.
Helpful links and contacts
If you need to talk to us about a scheduled EER, please contact your assigned Lead Evaluator. For all other questions, please email us.