Last year's NCEA students can check their results on the NZQA website from today. Photo: 123RF
Students can check their NCEA (National Certificate in Educational Achievement) results online from today.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) said final results for more than 160,000 students would be available via its website.
Students could log in to find out how they had performed in last year's exams, whether they had achieved an NCEA qualification, and if they did well enough to get merit or excellence endorsements and University Entrance.
They would also be able to see if their school had awarded them learning recognition credits, and if so, how many.
The government allowed schools to allocate the extra credits to make up for pandemic-related disruption to learning and students were eligible for up to 10 at NCEA level 1 and up to eight at levels 2 and 3.
Te Kura (formerly known as the Correspondence School) said its summer school would help students who needed more credits for an NCEA qualification or University Entrance.
Its chief executive Mike Hollings said the school usually worked with as many as 2000 students each summer and he expected greater numbers than normal due to disruption caused by the pandemic and by extreme weather events in the South Island last year.
NZQA said students who had forgotten their National Student Number (NSN) or student login details would be able to get assistance from a chatbot on its website.
The qualifications authority also said it had extended its contact centre opening hours until 8pm tonight, with extra staff available to answer students' queries about their NCEA results.
The contact centre could be contacted on 0800 697 296 or by e-mailing helpdesk@nzqa.govt.nz.
NZQA said students would be able to access their assessed NCEA exam papers online from 24 January and students could then apply for a review or reconsideration if they believed an error had been made in marking.
It expected to release results for New Zealand Scholarship exams on 8 February.
Schools reported that students had achieved relatively few internally assessed credits before exams began and some teachers and principals told RNZ last year was particularly difficult due to high rates of staff and student illness.
By the end of November schools had logged an average of 50.4 credits for each of their NCEA students, most of them for assessments completed before exams began.
At the same time in 2021 the average was 50.5 credits, in 2020 it was 52.8, and in 2019, the year before the pandemic began, 56.6.
'Today is not the end of the journey' - Tinetti
Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said last year was another disrupted one for students which was why the learning recognition credits which add an extra point for every five credits earned were developed.
It provided some surety of support and helped with students' mental health, she told Morning Report.
"It was a concern which was why we went down the track we did."
"Principals have three years down the track in this case [of the pandemic]" - Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti
Monitoring the need for the learning recognition credits would be occurring this year also.
Tinetti said she did not know how many credits were awarded for students' work last year. Final results would be available in April.
Any student who was concerned about their results today should contact their school or the NZQA, she said.
"Today is not the end of the journey; there are other options as well."
Planning and conversations were well underway to try and minimise disruption for schools this year, she said.
"Principals have three years down the track in this case [of the pandemic]... They already know what they're having to be doing so they're already well prepared in this area."