Wellington teens Jared, Grey and Caty met to review their NCEA results together. Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Thousands of teenagers and their schools have spent the past 24 hours checking their NCEA results.
Wellington teen Caty told RNZ she was nervous about her exam results, even though she had completed enough internally-assessed standards to achieve her level 1 NCEA qualification.
"I got terrified because this is my first NCEA and I was so scared that I was going to fail, even though I'd already passed with eight credits," she said.
Holidaying in the South Island, Bela who was in Year 12 last year, met her friends online to check their results together.
"We were all a little bit nervous, but we had each other there for moral support and then we had some time to debrief and talk about it a bit more after we'd checked our results," she said.
"There was quite a lot of stress placed upon us as Year 12s in the past year. That was a bit daunting so I'm kind of looking forward this coming year and being able to maybe relax a little bit more."
At Wellington's Waitangi skate park, Gus said he passed both exams he attempted and achieved level two of the NCEA.
"I felt like I was going to pass them, so, yeah, did well, did how I was hoping," he said.
His mate Roy only checked his results when RNZ asked how he had gone.
The news was not good but Roy, who was in Year 11 last year, attempting level 1, took it in his stride.
"I just checked it so I was about four credits short. That's a bit tough, but you know we'll get better next year, eh," he said.
Principals had warned that widespread absences due to illness made learning difficult for many students last year and the Qualifications Authority said provisional figures showed a slight drop in achievement rates for levels one and two of the NCEA.
Roy said he hoped this year would be better.
"If you listen and just pay attention and do your Zoom calls and stuff you should be alright to be honest. Hopefully there's no more Covid you know and we're all at school working, hopefully there's no lockdown learning."
Elsewhere on Wellington's waterfront, another former Year 11 student, Grey, was happy with his results and said he hoped the pandemic would have less effect on this year's learning.
"I think that level 2's going to be a lot harder and especially if there's more lockdowns or if there's more Covid restrictions it's going to make things a lot more difficult," he said.
The Qualifications Authority said more than 160,000 students could now check their results, and so far 74,000 students had checked their results by 4.30pm on Tuesday.
Students who had not received the results they hoped for could find information on the NZQA website about the range of options and support available to them.
Porirua College principal Ragne Maxwell said only a handful of her students needed catch-up courses over the next couple of weeks.
"We got most of it done at the end of last year which was very much our aim because of the pressure on staff," she said.
That's because the school used emergency funds provided nationwide by the government late last year to stage extra classes to help teens get enough credits.
"The loss of learning recognition funding that the government provided through the Ministry of Education made a huge difference for a number of students," she said.
"Once they had gone on exam leave we were able, for students who weren't sitting exams, to offer some extra courses in areas of interest or helping them move towards their careers where they could get some extra credits."
Maxwell said the courses included a marae course and a health and safety course.
In addition, teachers worked closely to support individual students to finish internal assessments or prepare for exams.
She said students had to cope with a lot of disruption in the past three years and the school was very grateful for the funding for catch-up learning.