Numeracy is a foundational skill that enables access to further learning, develops important life skills, and allows people to fully engage in work and in their communities.

Everyone has a role to play in developing NCEA numeracy, including school leaders, kaiako, whānau and ākonga.

When kaiako make the numeracy that naturally occurs in their learning programmes explicit, and when school leaders and whānau also support numeracy learning, ākonga:

• gain access to different perspectives of mathematics and statistics in a range of authentic and meaningful contexts;
• have multiple opportunities to practise their numeracy skills and transfer this knowledge between NCEA learning areas and their own lives; and
• can meet subject-specific numeracy demands.

About NCEA Numeracy

NCEA Numeracy supports ākonga to develop a level of numeracy knowledge and skills to engage successfully with all the learning areas of the New Zealand Curriculum, as well as learning in non-school settings. NCEA numeracy covers foundational numeracy. This is approximately Phase 3 (Year 8) and Phase 4 (Year 9) of the New Zealand Curriculum, whereby a student has full control over Phase 3 (Level 8) and is beginning to work at Phase 4 (Year 9).
From 2024, to gain an NCEA qualification, ākonga must pass either:

• the Numeracy standard US32406: Use mathematics and statistics to meet the numeracy demands of a range of situations;
• or the Pāngarau standard US32412, Te whakamahi pāngarau me te tauanga hei whakatutuki i ngā hiahia pāngarau o ngā pūāhua whai take;
• or gain 10 numeracy credits through an approved list of numeracy-rich standards. More details on these standards can be found here: Standards approved for NCEA Co-requisite during the transition period (2024-2027) | NCEA