NCEA (National Certificates of Educational Achievement) is the main secondary school qualification for students in New Zealand. NCEA is made up of three certificates at Levels 1, 2 and 3. In general, students work through Levels 1 to 3 in Years 11 to 13 at school. The NCEA qualifications are recognised by employers and used as a selection benchmark for universities and polytechnics.

A major review of NCEA has recently undertaken by the Ministry of Education and some big changes are planned for the next five years. You can find out more about the NCEA Change Package here.

Standards

Students will be assessed using NCEA standards which are categorised into internals and externals. Internal assessments are carried out by the school according to guidelines, and are used to test skills and knowledge that cannot be tested in an exam, e.g. speeches, research projects and performances. Whereas external assessments are generally tested through examinations at the end of the year. Standards are also classified as Unit and Achievement Standards. Unit standards are competency based, which means students either pass or fail. In contrast, Achievement standards are New Zealand curriculum based and can be completed at Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence level. Completing any of these standards allow students to gain credits towards an NCEA certificate, with slightly different requirements at each level.

Credit Requirements

There are three NCEA levels, depending on the difficulty of the standards achieved. At each level, students must complete a specified number of credits to complete the level. Credits can be gained over more than one year.

Level 1 - 80 credits required
Level 2 - 60 credits at level 2 or above + 20 credits from any level*
Level 3 - 60 credits at level 3 or above + 20 credits from level 2 or above*

*There are also literacy and numeracy requirements at these levels

Achieving with Endorsement

NCEA certificates can be endorsed to recognise high achievement in a significant number of standards. The requirement for a certificate endorsement is to achieve at least 50 credits with Merit or Excellence at the current level or above. Course endorsements may also be awarded to students who achieve highly in a subject. The requirement for a course endorsement is 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence, and at least 3 of these credits from externally assessed standards and 3 credits from internally assessed standards.

To find out more, check out the NCEA website here.