A radical shake-up of the country’s main secondary school qualification will see NCEA abolished completely and replaced with two new qualifications at Year 12 and 13.

The proposal, which is open for consultation until September before final decisions are made, represents the most significant update to secondary school assessments since NCEA was introduced more than two decades ago.

Under the new scheme, Year 11 students will face what is being called a “Foundational Skills Award” with a focus on literacy and numeracy. English and mathematics will be required subjects for students at this year level.

The intent of removing the Year 11 qualification is to give students time “to focus on deep learning of foundational skills and knowledge before undertaking high-stakes assessments in Years 12 and 13”.

Year 12 and 13 students will seek to attain the New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education (NZACE) respectively.

This will replace the current standards-based assessment system with a structured approach that requires students to take five subjects and pass at least four to receive the Year 12 and 13 certificates.

The assessments will have a clear “out of 100” marking system alongside A to E letter grades that the Government hopes will make sense to parents and students.

The Government will seek to implement the changes over the next five years alongside a refreshed curriculum. The Year 11 foundational award will be introduced from 2028, the Year 12 certificate in 2029, and the Year 13 certificate in 2030.

The discussion document being released today also poses the idea of potentially lifting the school leaving age from 16 to 17 if that’s what necessary to encourage students to get a school certificate. In the first instance, the Ministry of Education will consider targeted support to get students to stay until the end of Year 12.

The implementation timeline. Supplied / Ministry of Education.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the evidence showed NCEA “is not consistent” and “can be hard to navigate”.

“New Zealand’s future depends on our young people having the skills to succeed in the modern global economy. We’re backing Kiwi kids with a new internationally benchmarked national qualification designed to do exactly that,” Luxon said.

Education Minister Erica Stanford said that while NCEA was designed to be flexible, for many students that flexibility had encouraged a focus on simply attaining the qualification.

“This has come at the cost of developing the critical skills and knowledge they need for clear pathways into future study, training or employment,” Stanford said.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford have revealed NCEA's fate. Photo / Alex Cairns

The proposal also includes working with industry to develop better vocational pathways out of concern the current set-up wasn’t preparing students well for the likes of trades, hospitality and building and construction.

“This is about making sure our national qualification opens doors for every young person, whether they’re heading into a trade, university, or straight into work. Parents can be assured their kids will get the best possible opportunity to thrive,” Stanford said.

More structure, less flexibility

The discussion document notes that the changes do trade off some of the flexibility purposefully designed into NCEA “to address the credibility issues”.

“For example, there will be required subjects that students need to participate in at Year 11, and so schools will need to make sure students are doing these subjects. Students will also generally be required to take at least five subjects,” Stanford said.

“Feedback is important to make sure the implications of reduced flexibility are understood, and so that the positive benefits of NCEA can be retained and strengthened.”

The foundational award being introduced could be studied at any year between Year 9 and 13, but the Ministry of Education expects most will do this at Year 11.

“While the intention is for students to leave school with at least the New Zealand Certificate of Education, the Award will be an award in its own right, appearing on a student’s record,” Stanford said.

“This means that students who leave before the end of Year 12 may still leave with an Award. Students would need to achieve the Foundational Award to achieve the New Zealand Certificate of Education and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education.

“The Award will provide potential employers with a sense of a school-leaver’s knowledge in fundamental areas, including literacy and numeracy or te reo matatini and pāngarau.

“There may be other areas of achievement that the Award could document, including those that are not strictly academic.”

The proposed new record of achievement. Supplied / Ministry of Education

The proposal follows a series of damning reports recently on the state of NCEA.

The Education Review Office (ERO) has called the NCEA “difficult to understand” and has said it doesn’t prepare students for future achievement. One recommendation it’s made is to drop NCEA Level 1 entirely, something many schools have already done.

The Herald has also revealed two ministerial briefings from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) warning the NCEA faces a credibility crisis over its “overused” flexibility, a lack of coherent vocational education pathways, students gaming the system to accumulate credits, and an over-reliance on internal assessments.

In several interviews with the Herald, the Education Minister identified areas of interest as she prepared her reforms. That’s included the level of flexibility built into the current system.

There is currently no nationally compulsory NCEA course, meaning schools and students have some freedom to decide which subjects and standards they offer and sit.

While numeracy and literacy co-requisites have been introduced, officials say there is otherwise “no core learning required to achieve subjects within the qualification”.

“This design feature of NCEA can influence how programmes of learning are constructed, with some being structured around combinations of standards that are perceived to be ‘easier’, to maximise credit accumulation, and help students achieve the minimum 60-credit threshold,” the NZQA said in one paper.

Students gather credits from a “wide range” of standards, which officials said can come at “the expense of coherent course design”.

Another document from the NZQA focused on vocational education came to a similar conclusion when looking at how students engage with unit standards, which assess practical skills rather than traditional curriculum subjects.

“While students may be accumulating credits, the patterns suggest that these are not always part of structured or purposeful vocational learning pathways,” it said.

Luxon also indicated it was a key concern for him.

“Is [the NCEA] actually teaching our kids the core educational components that they need to have in order to enter the workforce and access higher-paying jobs?” the Prime Minister asked last month.

Asked by the Herald about the concerns with the NCEA system’s flexibility and whether he wanted a more structured course, Luxon said he didn’t want to get ahead of Stanford’s work.

“But you are quite right. If you go and talk to parents – I have had both my kids go through the system – it’s quite easy to assemble a bunch of credits that still mean you have difficulty doing some of the core stuff around mathematics and reading.”

Education Minister Erica Stanford received multiple briefings on the current set-up. Photo / Alyse Wright

One of the briefings suggested some unit standards should possibly not contribute to the NCEA. It mentioned the likes of providing basic life support, understanding a commercial espresso machine and preparing a beverage, and producing a CV.

“This is a useful skill, but its inclusion as credit-bearing within NCEA does little to enhance the standing of NCEA,” officials said.

In some cases where the standard is part of a clear package this may be appropriate, Stanford said.

“But if you’re doing it as a one-off with a whole lot of other things, then I think rightly so, NZQA are concerned about that,” she said.

Stanford has expressed her desire for industry and business to be more involved in setting the future direction of vocational education in secondary schools.

“They hold all of that knowledge about what are the useful skills and knowledge that are required to go into an apprenticeship or into work. It is crucial it is driven by them.”

She’s also highlighted concern with students not attending external examinations, saying the cost of this was “huge”.

Only 22% of 2024 results were achieved through exams and there were more than 250,000 instances last year of students skipping them as they thought they already had enough credits to pass.

“Either they’ve got enough credits to pass or they realise they’re not going to pass and there’s no point,” Stanford said.

“That inherent flexibility in the system has led to some of these unintended consequences.”

NCEA Discussion Document by Thomas Coughlan on Scribd

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. In 2025, he was a finalist for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.