Participation in education
Ethnic differences
Māori young people are less likely to be enrolled in education than non-Māori, particularly at ages 15 to 19.
In 2006, 60.1 percent of Māori aged 15 to 19 were enrolled in education compared to 76.8 percent of non-Māori aged 15 to 19.
Between 1999 and 2006, education enrolment rates of Māori aged 20 to 24 increased by 41 percent (from 21.5 percent to 30.3 percent), compared to a 3.4 percent increase for non-Māori. The gap between Māori and non-Māori enrolments therefore reduced over this period.
A fall in students taking Level 1-3 certificate courses has seen a slight decline in educational participation in the 20 to 24 age group since about 2002, especially among Māori.
| Proportion (%) enrolled in education | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 to 19 year olds | 20 to 24 year olds | |||
| Māori | Non-Māori | Māori | Non-Māori | |
| 1999 | 59.0 | 76.7 | 21.5 | 32.8 |
| 2000 | 59.8 | 76.0 | 24.2 | 33.9 |
| 2001 | 60.5 | 75.0 | 29.1 | 35.0 |
| 2002 | 56.8 | 74.0 | 34.1 | 34.2 |
| 2003 | 56.3 | 74.1 | 35.2 | 33.3 |
| 2004 | 58.5 | 75.6 | 34.7 | 33.5 |
| 2005 | 59.5 | 76.1 | 32.1 | 33.7 |
| 2006 | 60.1 | 76.8 | 30.3 | 33.9 |
Source: Ministry of Education. Notes:
- All secondary enrolment numbers are from July 1 rolls and exclude international students.
- For all years home schooling data, there were a large number 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.
- All tertiary enrolment numbers are total enrolments in the year and exclude international students
- Tertiary enrolment numbers were erroneously high for 2005 due to students at school doing tertiary courses being included. To adjust for this over count, the average of the tertiary enrolment rates by age, ethnic group and gender for 2004 and 2006 for ages 15 to 19 have been used to estimate enrolment rates in 2005.
There are ethnic variances in enrolment by type of education.
At ages 15 to 19, more than half of non-Māori (52 percent) and 38.9 percent of Māori were enrolled in secondary schools.(1) Ethnic differences in enrolment rates with tertiary education providers were much smaller. In 2006, 29.7 percent of Māori and 33.4 percent of non-Māori aged 15 to 19 were enrolled with a tertiary education provider. Māori students remain less likely than non-Māori to be enrolled in degree-level courses.
Note
We encourage you to be cautious about drawing conclusions from comparisons between ethnic groups. Apparent differences (in unadjusted data) between ethnic groups can often be explained by factors other than ethnicity per se, such as the different age, sex, geographical and socioeconomic distributions of different ethnic populations. In addition, datasets vary in the way that they collect and record ethnicity data.
Notes
1. STAR (Secondary Tertiary Alignment Resource) students are students who are still at secondary school but are doing course(s) through tertiary providers. These are included in the total for ‘Secondary’ and not ‘Tertiary’.
