Expulsion is the formal removal of a child from school or kura if they are 16 years old or older. This means they must leave and not attend the school they are enrolled at.
Expulsions occur only for 16 year-olds and above, therefore the expulsion rate refers to the number of expulsions per 1,000 standardised for students aged 16 or over.
Data calculation/treatment
This indicator uses age-standardised rates. These are expressed as expulsions per 1,000 students enrolled. Most expulsions peak at age 16, and age-standardisation allows a fair comparison between different cohorts. In any given year the schooling population will have a different age distribution. By standardising for age we can compare across years.
Exclusions
students from schools which are not receiving public funding
From the dataset School Student Engagement and Participation: Time series expulsions 2024, this data was extracted:
Sheet: 2. Ethnicity
Range: C4:O9
Provided: 78 data points
Dataset originally released on:
December 2025
Purpose of collection
Student attendance and engagement are critical factors relating to student achievement. The levels of stand-downs, suspensions, exclusions and expulsions help provide indications of where engagement in productive learning may be absent and behavioural issues may be present.