Sixteen percent of last year's school-leavers had no qualifications, Ministry of Education figures show. Photo: 123RF
Sixteen percent of last year's school-leavers had no qualifications, the highest figure in a decade.
It equates to about 10,600 teenagers, and is 0.4 of a percentage point worse than the previous year and about six percentage points higher than the 10-11 percent recorded in the years prior to the start of the pandemic.
The percentage of school leavers with no NCEA certificate has been rising since 2020, a trend teachers blamed on the after-effects of Covid-19 lockdowns combined with high employment prompting more young people to leave school earlier than they otherwise would.
Some worried any weakening of those effects would be cancelled out by the introduction last year of a tougher literacy and numeracy requirement which applied to students who wanted to leave with NCEA level 1.
The Education Ministry's figures showed 13 percent of last year's leavers had not reached the literacy and numeracy benchmark compared to about 10 percent under the previous requirement in pre-pandemic years.
The figures showed 81 percent of last year's leavers had stayed at school until the age of 17 or beyond, up from 79 percent the previous year with bigger increases in retention at schools in poorer communities.
Māori had the worst results - 28 percent left with no qualification last year, compared with 19 percent of Pacific leavers and 14 percent of European/Pākehā leavers.
In Tai Tokerau nearly one in five leavers had no NCEA certificate.
Socioeconomic barriers had a big impact - 28 percent of leavers from schools facing the most barriers had no NCEA certificate compared with 4 percent of leavers from schools facing the fewest barriers.
The figures showed 76 percent of last year's leavers had level 2 NCEA or better, 0.6 of a percentage point more than in 2023.
The percentage of leavers with at least NCEA level 3 rose 2.7 percentage points to 56 percent.
