Reading, maths and science literacy at age 15

Ethnic differences

Across all measures, European and Asian students had significantly higher mean scores than Māori and Pacific students. 

In reading literacy mean scores, European students got significantly higher scores than all other ethnic groups.

Across all measures, European and Asian students performed better than the OECD mean, whereas Māori and Pacific students did not perform as well as the mean.

Mean scores in reading, mathematical and science literacy for 15 year old students in New Zealand, by ethnicity, 2006
  European Māori Pacific Asian OECD mean
Reading literacy 542 477 461 528 492
Mathematical literacy 539 479 463 548 498
Scientific literacy 554 480 454 541 500

Source: PISA 2006.

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.