Education Minister Erica Stanford has confirmed the detailed structure of the qualification that will replace NCEA from 2028, naming the two new certificates and locking in a six point grading scale, compulsory science at Year 11 and a minimum five subject load for senior students. The announcement, made alongside Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, marks the most significant change to New Zealand secondary school assessment in more than two decades and ends months of speculation about how the credit based NCEA system would be rebuilt.
Under the plan set out in the official Beehive announcement, students will sit the New Zealand Certificate of Education, or NZCE, at the end of Year 12 and the New Zealand Advanced Certificate of Education, or NZACE, at the end of Year 13. NCEA Level 1 will be removed entirely from 2028. The first NZCE awards will be issued in 2029 and the first NZACE awards in 2030. Current Year 9 students will be the first full cohort to move through the new system.
The new qualifications drop the long running credit based model, where students assembled standards from across thousands of options to reach a credit threshold. Stanford has been blunt that this flexibility was the problem rather than the strength of NCEA. “Gone is the ability to make up your overall qualification by choosing between thousands of different standards,” she said in remarks reported by RNZ. She added that the government wanted young people “leaving school with qualifications that are clear, rigorous and widely understood by parents, employers, tertiary providers and students themselves”.
Every subject under the new system will be graded on a six point scale running from A+ down through A, B, C, D and E, with C set as the pass mark. Students must study at least five subjects in each of Years 12 and 13 and must pass a minimum of three of those subjects to be awarded the certificate at that level. Each subject will be made up of a mix of internal assessment and at least one exam, with roughly three to four assessments a year per subject. Endorsements will be available for students who perform strongly across all five of their subjects.
The compulsory subject list at Year 11 also expands. Science joins English and mathematics as a required course from 2028, and the existing Year 11 literacy and numeracy foundational award remains in place as a benchmark that students must clear before they can be credited with a full qualification at Year 12 or Year 13. The structure is laid out in detail by 1News, which notes that certificates will list every subject a student has passed alongside the grade, instead of the current pass, merit and excellence labels at credit level.
The PPTA, which represents secondary teachers, has been the loudest professional voice raising concerns. President Chris Abercrombie told reporters the new model is “very rigid” and that requiring an exam in every subject would create problems for practical and creative courses. He asked what an exam in food technology or visual art would even look like and questioned how the workforce would cope. “Where are we going to get the science teachers? Are we going to have enough science labs?” he said, pointing to the science teacher shortage that has been documented in successive Education Review Office reports.
Labour education spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime has signalled the party will not oppose the basic direction of reform but has flagged the timeline as risky. She warned that “previous rushed overhauls have led to students being the guinea pigs for failed change, like national standards, so we must get this right”, and said the consultation window running only until 1 September gives parents, teachers and tertiary providers little more than six weeks of meaningful engagement.
The Green Party has been sharper. Education spokesperson Lawrence Xu-Nan said the changes contradict evidence that high stakes standardised assessment widens inequality for MΔori, Pacific and disadvantaged students, and argued that real world knowledge does not fit into “neat little five subject boxes”. The Greens also criticised the removal of Level 1, which they say currently provides an early formal qualification for students who leave school before Year 13.
For schools, the practical questions now centre on workforce planning, lab capacity and the cost of rewriting every subject specification before 2028. The Ministry of Education has been working on draft curriculum documents alongside the qualification design, but principals have privately told RNZ that the lead time is tight, especially in low decile schools where science staffing is already stretched.
For families, the most immediate question is what happens to students currently part way through NCEA. The government has confirmed that any student already enrolled in Level 1 or Level 2 NCEA will be able to complete those qualifications under the existing rules, with the new system applying only to cohorts beginning Year 11 from 2028 onwards. That clarification has eased some of the anxiety from parents whose children are sitting NCEA examinations this year and next.
With education shaping up as a key battleground heading into the next campaign, voters are likely to weigh in on whether the shift to NZCE and NZACE delivers the clarity Stanford has promised or repeats the disruption Labour is warning about. Readers can compare each party’s wider platform on schools, tertiary and workforce policy through the Newswire voting tool ahead of polling day.
What do you think of the move from NCEA to NZCE and NZACE, and the return of compulsory science at Year 11? Will the six point grading scale make achievement clearer for parents and employers, or does the rigid five subject, exam heavy model risk pushing practical learners out? Share your view in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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