Māori and Pacific school leavers’ results improved across most measures in 2017

<h2>M&amacr;ori and Pacific school leavers’ results improved across most measures in 2017&comma; says Dr Craig Jones&comma; Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Education&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Both M&amacr;ori and Pacific school leavers’ achievement of NCEA level 2 or higher increased slightly&comma; against the overall trend which saw a slight downturn&period; More M&amacr;ori and Pacific school leavers also achieved NCEA Level 3 and University Entrance&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Dr Jones said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;A higher percentage of both M&amacr;ori and Pacific students are staying at school until at least age 17&comma; and they are successfully completing higher level qualifications&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Overall&comma; the percentage of all students leaving school with NCEA qualifications remained high in 2017&period; Almost 90&percnt; of school leavers had NCEA Level 1 or more&comma; and over 80&percnt; had NCEA Level 2 or more&period; A slightly higher percentage of school leavers in 2017 achieved NCEA level 3 &lpar;54&period;4&percnt;&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;At the same time&comma; there was a slight increase in the overall number of students leaving school before the age of 17&period; Employment statistics suggest that many of the year 11 and 12 students who left school in 2017 moved directly into employment&period; There was an increase of 1&period;5&percnt; in the employment of 15-19 year olds in 2017 compared with the previous year&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Dr Jones said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<h2>School leaver data also covers vocational pathways&comma; which provide new ways to achieve NCEA Levels 1&comma; 2 and 3 and are aligned with the skills needed for particular sectors of the workforce&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;There was a 1&period;4 percentage point increase in students achieving vocational pathways to 34&period;4&percnt; of school leavers in 2017&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Finally&comma; in 2017 there were fewer 2016 school leavers transitioning to tertiary study&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Dr Jones said&period; &&num;8220&semi;These results reflect the last year before first year fees-free tertiary study was introduced&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>The school leavers’ achievement data is published annually by the Ministry of Education on the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;educationcounts&period;govt&period;nz&sol;statistics&sol;schooling&sol;senior-student-attainment&sol;school-leavers2" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">Education Counts website<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;