How Covid-19 affected NZ qualifications

Most New Zealand students continued learning at home during the 6-week nationwide lockdown in 2020, otherwise education was mainly able to continue in normal conditions.

Impact of Covid-19 in New Zealand in 2020

New Zealand was not impacted as heavily by the Covid-19 pandemic as many other countries around the world.

We entered into a nationwide 6-week lockdown in late March 2020. During the lockdown, educational facilities were closed but most students continued learning at home.

Following that lockdown, Covid-19 was eliminated from the New Zealand community. Community life returned to relative normality, and students were able to attend educational facilities as usual.

There were two further lockdowns in Auckland that year, for around two weeks each.

Timeline of Covid-19 in New Zealand

How the pandemic impacted education

During New Zealand’s lockdown, schools and tertiary providers amended their programmes and most continued to deliver courses from a distance (online, or with hard copies of materials). Some providers amended their holiday schedule to reduce the impact of the lockdown on classroom activities. After the initial nationwide lockdown, most learning was completed in person, under normal conditions.

To ensure students had a fair opportunity to achieve qualifications and awards despite the pandemic, some temporary changes were made to NCEA and University Entrance (UE) for 2020, and the NCEA examinations were delayed by 10 days.

News article summarising NCEA 2020 changes

Recognition of qualifications completed in 2020

Qualifications completed in New Zealand in 2020 are of the same standing as those completed in any other year.

Contact us

For more information or to give us feedback, email internationalunit@nzqa.govt.nz.

 
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