Introduction
New Zealand education providers offer "national" qualifications and/or qualifications that they develop themselves. See Terms used to describe qualifications.
Links on the tabs above take you to national qualifications:
- NQF (National Qualifications Framework)
- NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement).
Tertiary education providers also offer certificates, diplomas and degrees that are not national qualifications.
The KiwiQuals website allows you to find and compare all qualifications.
Secondary school and trade and business tertiary qualifications administered by NZQA, are explained through links on the left sidebar. See also:
- Choosing your course - what to look for when choosing a course or qualification - especially from a private training establishment
- Why study in New Zealand - especially for international students.
Terms used to describe qualifications in New Zealand
See the Glossary for a full list of terms that may be used on this website.
In brief, the term National is restricted to qualifications based on unit or achievement standards, or qualifications that have components for which there is automatically transferable credit. The term New Zealand is available for non-unit standard based qualifications of national standing.
A provider may apply for accreditation to offer a course or programme developed by the provider. For course approval the provider is required to supply details of the design of the course and any additional material necessary to show the proposed course fits within the provider's quality management system.
The courses and qualifications section of this website includes accreditations for national qualifications and for provider qualifications that have been approved by the Qualifications Authority or its agents. Currently this includes all approved qualifications except those offered by universities. See KiwiQuals for all approved qualifications offered in New Zealand.
National Certificates and National Diplomas
On the National Qualifications Framework there are more than 18,000 national standards and 800 National Certificates and National Diplomas covering almost every area of work and learning.
The NCEA (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) is the main national qualification for secondary students.
Providers of National Qualifications Framework qualifications are awarded "accreditation" to offer the components that make up a National Certificate/National Diploma.
Our site shows what components a training organisation can offer: they will not have accreditation to offer a specific National Certificate/National Diploma, but they will have accreditation for the Fields, Subfields, domains and unit standards that make up those qualifications.
The terms National Certificate and National Diploma can only be used to refer to national qualifications registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).
Trade and business qualifications
NZQA also administers the following trade and business qualifications.
- Advanced Vocational Awards (AVA) qualifications - New Zealand Certificate in Engineering and Technicians' Certificates)
- New Zealand Diploma in Business
- Trade qualifications
- Industry examinations
Degrees
The Qualifications Authority approves all degrees offered outside the university sector.This website lists information on degrees approved by NZQA only. Each university maintains a website listing degrees offered. See KiwiQuals for all approved qualifications offered in New Zealand.
Levels
To attract government funding most courses now indicate a level between 1-10. These numbers equate to the levels of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and the New Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications. However, these qualifications need not be registered on the National Qualifications Framework.
Government funding
The Ministry of Education is responsible for funding providers and qualifications. The Ministry of Education website has information and useful links on the student loan scheme.
Page updated: 18 November 2002