Student suspensions from school in New Zealand

By reason, 2020, % of suspensions

The following information applies to all values in the table. Year: 2020
Reason for suspension	% of suspensions
Continual Disobedience	19.9%
Smoking or Alcohol	3.6%
Theft Vandalism or Arson	4.4%
Drugs (Including Substance Abuse)	16%
Physical Assault on Other Students	25.3%
Verbal Assault on Other Students	1.3%
Physical Assault on Staff	6.4%
Verbal Assault on Staff	3.3%
Other	19.7%

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.