Data on education

Inequality

Key outcome areas identified by disabled people include:

1.1 Disabled people and their whānau are welcomed at the education setting of their choice. Current available data indicates:

• 8% of disabled children had 3+ non-structural school moves, compared to 2% of non-disabled children (Merging MOE's admin data & 2013 Disability Survey using IDI, 2020).
• 8% of parents and whānau of a child with a disability or who needs learning support disagreed that they feel welcome at their child's school compared to 1% of other parents and whānau (The New Zealand Council of Educational Research, 2019)

1.2 Disabled people participate and are included in the entire education system and extra-curricular activities.

• Only 3% of disabled people were enrolled in non-compulsory education, in comparison to 12% of non-disabled people (Household Labour force Survey, 2019).
• School attendance rates among 12-19 year olds was at 82% for disabled youth, compared to 86% for non-disabled youth (Youth 2000 surveys, 2019/20)

1.3 Disabled people have positive experiences in education.

• Only 65% of Māori/Pasifika youth felt like a part of school, compared to 89% of non-disabled youth (Youth 2000 surveys, 2019/20).
• 46% of disabled people held a high level of trust for the education system, compared to 35% of non-disabled people (General Social Survey, 2018).

1.4 Disabled people achieve and progress in education.

• Inequality persists with 21% of non-disabled people having a post-graduate qualification or higher as the highest level of qualification, in comparison to 7% of disabled people in 2021. Nevertheless, there is progress with the proportion of disabled people that have had their highest qualification status as being school qualification having decreased slightly since 2016 from 46% to 44% in 2021, whereas post-graduate qualification has increased slightly from 6% to 7% (Household Labour force Survey, 2016-2021)

Other resources

• Explorable data about education outcomes is available at this link.  
• Download a PDF of graphs about Education Inequality [PDF, 84 KB]

Progress

No suitable data on progress is currently available for the following key outcome areas identified by disabled people:

1.1 Disabled people and their whānau are welcomed at the education setting of their choice.

1.2 Disabled people participate and are included in the entire education system and extra-curricular activities.

1.3 Disabled people have positive experiences in education.

However, the Household Labourforce Surveys (2016-2021), does provide data on the following:

1.4 Disabled people achieve and progress in education.

• The proportion of disabled people that have had their highest qualification status as being school qualification having decreased slightly since 2016 from 24% to 44% in 2021, whereas post-graduate qualification has increased from 6% to 7%. There does seem to be an impact from COVID-19, with the proportion of disabled people having no qualification, increasing from 67% to 71% in 2020.
• The proportion of disabled people not in education or employment, although increased in 2020 (from 35% to 49%), it dropped again to 29% in 2021, indicating progress.
• The main activity for those not in education and employment being study or training, has remained stable for disabled people, whereas it has declined for non-disabled people.