NCEA - National Certificate of Educational Achievement

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

Most students will complete a level of the NCEA qualification as they move through the senior school. Each year, students study a number of courses or subjects. In each subject, skills and knowledge are assessed against standards. Teachers 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. Students must achieve a certain number of credits to gain an NCEA certificate. The credit requirements for each level are outlined below.

NCEA Level 2 (Year 12)

• 60 credits from Level 2 or higher
• Literacy and numeracy

NCEA Level 3 (Year 13)

• 60 credits from Level 3 or higher
• Literacy and numeracy
  

How NCEA Works

IB or NCEA? video

Endorsement of Level Certificates

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

Certificate endorsement is calculated in January each year on the release of external results. Only the highest level certificate awarded can be endorsed unless students:

• achieve more than one level NCEA certificate in a single year e.g. a Year 13 student doing multi-level study may achieve both a Level 2 and a Level 3 certificate in the one year and have them endorsed
• in addition to meeting the requirements of a higher level certificate endorsement they have achieved sufficient credits from a lower level to be able to endorse the lower level certificate e.g. a student may be working at both Levels 2 and 3 and achieve enough Level 2 Excellence credits to upgrade their Level 2 Merit endorsement to Excellence. The student will need to contact NZQA to have the lower level certificate upgraded.

Endorsement of Courses

Course endorsement provides recognition of student achievement in an individual course. Students will gain an endorsement for a course if, in a single school year, they achieve:

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

A course endorsement is not a qualification. A course endorsement can be awarded even if a qualification for that level is not achieved. For example, a student may achieve a Merit endorsement for their Level 2 mathematics course regardless of whether they achieve NCEA Level 2.

Note: Some courses offer unit standards.  These do not qualify for endorsements.

Literacy and Numeracy 

From 2024 onward, students entering the NCEA pathway will need to get their literacy and numeracy credits through meeting the new, dedicated numeracy and literacy standards. These standards will be administered at school but will be assessed via externally set and marked Common Assessment Activities (CAAs).  Students do not need to enrol in any special or extra courses, teaching for these will be covered across all subject areas.

To meet these standards, students will need to be working at New Zealand curriculum Levels 4 to 5. These unit standards are designed to reflect student capability across the curriculum, rather than in any single subject area. Careful monitoring of student progress will help teachers determine student readiness to attempt these standards. Students will need to pass these standards as a co-requisite to attaining any level of NCEA and therefore, will also be a co-requisite for attaining University Entrance. As these are unit standards, students are able to Achieve or Not Achieve these standards.

For students in Year 12 and 13 in 2025, they will have gained their Level 1 literacy and numeracy requirements through their course of study in existing NCEA assessments.

In NCEA Level 2 and 3 literacy and numeracy credits can be gained in a variety of different subject areas. You can find out which standards count for literacy and numeracy in the credit information table included for each subject.

University Entrance

University Entrance (UE) is the minimum requirement to go to a New Zealand university. To qualify you will need:

• NCEA Level 3
• Approved subjects: 14 credits in each of three approved subjects at Level 3
• Literacy and numeracy requirements: through the co-requisite standards

University approved subjects offered are clearly identified in the subject tables that follow with the course descriptors.  

In addition to the NZQA university entrance requirement, each university or tertiary institution has specific entry standards (at a level which is higher than the basic UE) for some or all of their degree programmes.