The NCEA exam results published today include thousands of emergency grades for students affected by November's earthquake.
Students sitting exams (file): Emergency grades for students affected by the Kaikōura earthquake were among the NCEA results released today. Photo: 123RF
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority said 89 schools applied for emergency grades on behalf of 20,122 students for one or more of last year's exams.
The grades, based on students' work earlier in the year, could be used to replace results for students who were unable to sit an exam or whose preparation or performance were impaired by the 14 November quake or by the flooding in the Wellington region the next day.
The authority said the schools submitted 85,403 emergency grades, but only 31,652 - or 37 percent - were used in place of, or in the absence of, an examination result.
The applications included 26,206 emergency grades for 10,756 students who had exams on the day of the earthquake and most of those, 16,419, were used.
"For those students who sat the examination but whose performance may have been affected, NZQA has used the better of the students' two grades (either the emergency derived grade or the examination result)."
The authority said a preliminary look indicated that NCEA and UE results for the earthquake-affected regions of Canterbury, Nelson-Marlborough and Wellington following application of the emergency grades was consistent with previous years.
It said the emergency grade process allowed schools to make bulk applications without having to explain the circumstances for each individual student.
In addition to emergency grades, schools applied for derived grades for 2400 students who were unable to attend an exam through illness or misadventure or whose preparation for an exam was impaired.
The authority said 97 percent of the derived grade applications were approved.
