Most teachers want NCEA improved, not replaced — but the government is pushing ahead

Seven in ten secondary teachers say NCEA should be improved rather than removed, according to a national survey by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER). That puts the teaching profession directly at odds with the coalition government's plan to replace the qualification with a new pathway starting in 2028.

NCEA (the National Certificate of Educational Achievement) is the qualification secondary students work towards in Years 11 to 13. The government wants to replace it with a new set of senior secondary certificates — think of it as swapping out the entire framework students use to gain their school-leaving qualifications, not just tweaking the subjects inside it.

The NZCER survey ran across late 2025 and early 2026, gathering responses from 830 teachers at 126 schools. Seventy-one percent agreed, with 45 percent strongly agreeing, that NCEA should be improved rather than removed. Principals echoed that view: 70 percent agreed, 57 percent strongly, in results published in a separate report at the end of June. (RNZ)

Concern about the proposed replacement is sharp on specifics. Sixty-eight percent of teachers and 68 percent of principals said the proposed changes would limit learning opportunities and pathways for students in their school. On the proposed new Year 12 and Year 13 certificates, 44 percent of teachers disagreed the change was heading in the right direction, while 24 percent agreed and nearly a third chose a neutral response. Among principals, 47 percent disagreed on direction and the same proportion disagreed their school could implement the changes within the proposed time frames. Only 28 percent of principals agreed with the direction of the changes.

Just over half of teacher respondents disagreed the new qualification would reduce inequities. One hundred teachers wrote comments about the NCEA changes, many criticising the process and rationale behind them.

The government's plans are well advanced. In August 2025 the coalition released a discussion document proposing to replace NCEA (Ministry of Education). Public consultation has since closed. In March 2026 the Ministry announced the structure of the new qualifications system had been agreed, and in May further details were released showing new senior secondary qualifications will start replacing NCEA from 2028 (Ministry of Education; Tahurangi). Under the existing NCEA Change Programme, Level 2 is now scheduled for full implementation by 2028 rather than 2026, and Level 3 by 2029 rather than 2027.

The Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA), the union representing secondary teachers, has been making a related case for some time. A 2024 PPTA survey on the NCEA Level 1 rollout found the changes had increased workloads, with insufficient support from NZQA and exemplars that often did not align with assessments (PPTA). In its submission on the proposal to replace NCEA, the PPTA argued the solution lies in increased collaboration and resources to ensure the strengths-based, flexible NCEA system continues to function effectively (PPTA). The union had previously proposed to its own NCEA Review that the Level 1 qualification be removed altogether and all Level 1 achievement standards deregistered (PPTA). A PPTA "NCEA Pulse Check" report to the Minister, dated November 2024, recorded positivity about future improvements to NCEA, while noting the qualification had become too flexible to be meaningful (PPTA).

NZCER's longitudinal data gives the latest numbers a baseline. A 2012 NZCER survey found support for NCEA among teachers had shifted only 4 percentage points in nine years, from 65 percent (PPTA). Teacher sentiment toward the qualification has been stable for a long time.

Beyond the qualification debate, the survey captures a workforce under pressure. Sixty-seven percent of teachers reported they "sometimes" or "often" experienced student behaviour that caused serious disruption to their teaching in 2025, up from 48 percent in 2015, 57 percent in 2018, and 61 percent in 2021. Seventy-one percent said they wanted to reduce the pace of change in their work. Sixty-two percent wanted more teacher aides and 57 percent wanted better pay. Ninety-one respondents wrote comments about teaching, covering themes including loving the job while feeling undervalued, frustration with politics and the pace of change, student needs and behaviours, and teacher stress, workload, and burnout.

The broader context here is a qualification system already mid-reform, now facing wholesale replacement, and a workforce telling NZCER that change fatigue and classroom disruption are getting worse, not better. The government has agreed the structure of the replacement system. The teaching profession, by substantial majorities in this survey, is not convinced the direction, the equity case, or the implementation time frames are right. The Ministry has not yet published the outcomes of the closed consultation. What is clear from the NZCER data is that the gap between policy intent and classroom-level confidence is wide, and it is measurable.