Secondary school pupils can now find out how they fared in last year's exams.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority today released National Certificate of Educational Achievement results for about 168,000 pupils on its website just after 7am.

The authority had earlier refused to say exactly when the results would go live to avoid tens of thousands of students logging in at the same time and crashing the website.

Last year, students logging in overloaded the website, frustrating many who couldn't access their results.

The qualifications authority said the students would receive their marked examination papers late this month.

Those who sat digital examinations as part of the Digital Trials and Pilots Programme would have to wait until January 23 to view their marked papers online.

After receiving their marked NCEA papers, students had until February 16 to apply for a review or reconsideration of their examination papers.

NZQA has extended its call-centre operations until 8pm today and has extra staff on to answer queries students might have about their results.

But not everyone who sat exams would find out their results today.

Students who sat New Zealand Scholarship examinations would not be able to view their results until February 13.

Although the much-awaited examination results ritual has finally arrived it may look completely different by the end of next year.

A review is taking place this year that may completely transform the education system, tackling problems identified in the terms of reference such as "the impact of over-assessment on student wellbeing and teacher workload" and "assessment-driven teaching and learning".