• 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.
• Students are recognised for high achievement at each level by gaining NCEA with Merit or NCEA with Excellence.
• Both courses (or subjects) can have endorsement, or a student's entire certificate can be endorsed.
• Students will gain an endorsement for a course if, in a single school year, they achieve 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence. At least three credits must be assessed during the year, and three during exams.
• A certificate will be endorsed when 50 credits are gained at either Merit level, for a Merit endorsement, or Excellence level, for an Excellence endorsement.
• New Zealand Scholarship are an extra set of exams that provide recognition and monetary reward to top students in their last year of schooling. They are released at a later date.
-Source: NZQA
What if you don't get the results you're after?
• Exam results time can be full of emotions for young people (and parents) - ranging from euphoria, surprise, envy, nonchalance or worst, being deeply disappointed. Parents need to think how they will consider their and their child's emotions if they are going to have a meaningful conversation about the future.
• NCEA is a good opportunity to talk about career aspirations, starting a conversation or thinking about a Plan B. Research confirms parents' influence on young people - therefore parents can play a key role in extending young people's career horizons, validating their effort and sense of options.
• If things don't go as planned, NCEA results can be reviewed, or there may be opportunities to achieve missed credits - talk to your school or NZQA. Tertiary providers may also have bridging courses or staircasing for those at the end of their schooling.
• Parents may need more information on what results actually mean for their young person - either Careers NZ or the NZQA website are invaluable resources.
- Source: Careers NZ
