Early leaving exemption: Enrolment in school is compulsory for all students aged between 6 and 16 years. However, parents of students aged fifteen may apply to the Ministry of Education for an exemption from schooling on the basis of educational problems, conduct, or the likelihood that the student will not benefit from attending available schools.
Rate: Total number of 15-year-old students enrolled who obtain an early leaver exemption during the school year, divided by the total number of 15 year-old students on the roll (multiplied by 1000).
Not approved: include revoked, pending without a destination, awaiting, or declined applications.
Data calculation/treatment
Ethnicity is a measure of cultural affiliation, rather than race, ancestry, nationality, or citizenship.
Total response ethnicity has been introduced in 2023. This means up to 3 different ethnic groups can be recorded for each student. A student is counted in each ethnic group they belong to and once in "Total" Ethnic Group.
Limitations of the data
Each year, there was a small percentage of students for which no ethnicity code had been recorded. The distribution of cases with non-missing ethnic codes has been applied to the set of students with no ethnicity code so as to equate numbers by ethnic group with total numbers of cases. For this reason, all comparisons by ethnicity should be viewed as estimates only.
From the dataset School Student Engagement and Participation: Early leaving exemptions 2025, this data was extracted:
Sheet: 3. by Gender
Range: C3:Z10
Provided: 144 data points
Dataset originally released on:
September 2026
Purpose of collection
In order to achieve in education students must engaged and interested in learning. For many students this means staying at school. All schools face the constant challenge of ensuring that all students feel they belong and are encouraged to participate at school. This is the foundation for motivation, interest and achievement in learning.
Young people who leave school without qualifications may have difficulty performing in the workforce and may face difficulties in terms of life-long learning, or returning to formal study in later years.
There is a strong correlation between early school leavers and unemployment and/or lower incomes, which are in turn generally related to poverty and dependence on income support. In New Zealand, recent data show that those with no qualifications have higher unemployment rates and lower median incomes when compared to those with qualification.