Student suspensions from New Zealand schools

2001–2023, number of suspensions

The following information applies to all values in the table. Measure: Suspension cases in schools
Year	Number of suspensions
2001	4,802
2002	4,932
2003	4,895
2004	4,783
2005	5,148
2006	4,995
2007	4,682
2008	4,385
2009	4,757
2010	4,223
2011	3,745
2012	3,357
2013	3,079
2014	2,696
2015	2,618
2016	2,699
2017	3,130
2018	3,065
2019	3,281
2020	2,280
2021	2,445
2022	2,728
2023	3,406

Definitions

A suspension is a formal removal of a student from a school until a school Board of Trustees decides the outcome at a suspension meeting. Following a suspension, the Board of Trustees decides how to address the student's misbehaviour.

Data calculation/treatment

The age-standardised suspension rate is one where all subgroups, for all years, being compared are artificially given the same age distribution. In this indicator, the age distributions of students in each subgroup and year have been standardised to (or weighted by) the set of 2019 age-specific suspension rates for all New Zealand.
As suspensions are highest for ages 13 to 15, standardising for age will remove any differences due to one group having a younger or older population than other groups, or if the overall age distribution has changed from year to year. As such, the standardised rate is an artificial measure, but it does provide an estimate of how groups, or overall rates by year, might more fairly compare if they had the same age distribution.
For this indicator, ethnic group is prioritised in the order of Māori, Pacific Peoples, Asian, other groups except European/Pākehā, and European/Pākehā.