NCEA - Overview

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the main national qualification for secondary school students in New Zealand.  NCEA is recognised by employers, and used for selection by universities and polytechnics, both in New Zealand and overseas.

• Each year, students study a number of courses or subjects.
• In each subject, skills and knowledge are assessed against a number of standards.
• Schools use a range of internal and external assessments to measure how well students meet these standards.
• When a student achieves a standard, they gain a number of credits.  One credit is equivalent to 10 hours of study.  Students must achieve a certain number of credits to gain an NCEA certificate.
• There are three levels of NCEA certificate, depending on the difficulty of the standards achieved. In general, students work through levels 1 to 3 in years 11 to 13 at school.

Visit the NZQA website for information on "How NCEA works".

In order to gain an NCEA qualification, students must meet the literacy and numeracy requirements for NCEA Level 1. 

To fulfil the literacy requirement, students must gain a minimum of 10 credits through either:

• specified assessment standards available in a range of subjects and English for Academic Purposes unit standards 22750 and 22751 (minimum total of 10 credits); 

OR

• Unit standards - package of three literacy unit standards (total of 10 credits - all three required).

 To fulfil the numeracy requirement, students require a minimum of 10 credits through either:

• specified assessment standards available in a range of subjects - (minimum total of 10 credits);

OR

• Unit standards - package of three numeracy unit standards (total of 10 credits - all three required).

There are no additional requirements for NCEA Level 2 or Level 3. For further clarification, see the NZQA website for information on "NCEA literacy and numeracy requirements".

As part of the NCEA Change Package, a package of new Unit Standards is being developed to assess foundational literacy and numeracy.

The package of Literacy and Numeracy standards will be worth 20 credits in total and be externally assessed.

The standards will become mandatory in 2023.  Learners will be required to meet the standards to attain NCEA at any level from 2023 onwards. 

The 20 Literacy and Numeracy credits are stand-alone credits and do not contribute to the 60 credits required to be awarded NCEA at each level.

For more information on the development of specific standards to assess literacy and numeracy click here. 

When students perform consistently above the 'Achieved' level, their result(s) can be 'endorsed' to reflect their high achievement.  This can occur at either the Certificate or individual course/subject level i.e., either their NCEA qualification can be 'endorsed' if certain criteria are met, or if they are strong in particular subjects, those subjects can be 'endorsed' individually. 

For an NCEA certificate to be endorsed with Excellence a student must gain 50 credits at Excellence at the level of the certificate (i.e., Level 1 or 2 ) or above. So, if a student has 50 Level 1 credits at Excellence they may have their Level 1 certificate "endorsed with Excellence". Likewise, if a student gains 50 credits at Merit (or Merit and Excellence) at Level 1 their NCEA  Level 1 certificate may be "endorsed with Merit". Endorsement awards show on their Record of Achievement.

Course endorsement provides recognition for a student who has performed exceptionally well in an individual course/subject. Students will gain an endorsement for a course if, in a single school year they achieve:

• 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence, and
• at least 3 of these credits are from externally assessed standards and 3 credits from internally assessed standards. Note, this does not apply to Physical Education, Religious Studies or Level 3 Visual Arts.

NOTE: The time requirement of 'in a single school year' applies only to the subject endorsement, and not to certificate endorsement. 

These Course Endorsement Scenarios are helpful in understanding how endorsement can be awarded.

Read more about NCEA Endorsement here.