The benefits of secondary school qualifications are numerous. Achieving at school and gaining secondary qualifications gives students a strong foundation for life-long learning. It also improves job opportunities and increases students’ access to tertiary education, leading to better social and economic outcomes. Secondary qualifications provide access to a wider range of jobs and give people more flexibility to change jobs. Consequently, gaining qualifications at senior secondary school is important.
Tertiary enrolments of Pasifika students are low, especially in the higher level degree courses. This is partly due to non-completion of secondary qualifications. A report on the achievement of Pasifika candidates on the NQF1 found that that many Pasifika students are not reaching the levels of achievement needed to gain access to higher level tertiary courses. Pasifika students are less likely to gain NCEA qualifications in a given year than other students, and are less likely to attain University Entrance (UE). These findings lead us to question what the achievement issues are for Pasifika students. This will help us to determine which student, teacher, and school practices need to be focussed on. We seek to identify these achievement issues in this paper.