New Zealand · NCEA record planning
NCEA Course Endorsement Calculator
Check one course’s graded-credit and internal/external assessment balance.
Your verified results record
Example rows, not your result. Enter each final credited standard once. Remove mutual exclusions before entry. No login or student identifiers needed.
Record planning result
Checking example…
Input-based planning only. NZQA records determine qualifications and awards.
Credit audit trace
| Record / threshold | Credits | Treatment / gap |
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Enter one school-defined course in one academic year
A school course is not necessarily identical to an approved University Entrance subject. Schools choose the standards that make up a course and report it to NZQA. Enter only the standards belonging to the course you are checking, and select the academic year. Results from other years remain visible in your entered record but do not contribute to this year’s ordinary course threshold.
Use final grades, actual credits, standard levels and the internal or external assessment classification. Do not enter the same standard twice or use the same credited result toward two course endorsements for the same year. This calculator checks your entered course; it cannot verify the school’s course registration or whether a standard has already been assigned elsewhere.
The assessment balance must hold at the award grade
For the ordinary route, 14 qualifying credits must include at least 3 internally assessed and 3 externally assessed credits. Excellence uses Excellence results; Merit uses Merit and Excellence; Achieved uses all achieved grades. A high total alone is not enough. Twelve internal Excellence credits plus two external Excellence credits miss the external minimum for Excellence.
If that record also has a 3-credit external Merit result, the ordinary Merit route can reach 17 qualifying credits with enough internal and external evidence, while Excellence still misses its external requirement. The trace reports total, internal and external gaps for each grade. Standards at more than one level are checked for the highest feasible level at the highest feasible award grade, rather than lowering the result because an unnecessary lower-level row exists.
Exempt courses need a different review
This tool deliberately checks the ordinary route. It does not apply the exemptions for specified Physical Education, Religious Studies, New Zealand Sign Language, Psychology, Visual Arts or Te Marautanga o Aotearoa domains. An ordinary-route failure in one of those courses is not proof that an endorsement is impossible. Ask your school to apply the precise exemption using the reported course and standards.
Course endorsement is an award, not an NCEA qualification. It can be earned without an NCEA certificate at that level, so this form does not require a certificate confirmation box. The result does not submit the award. Use the official assessment rules to reconcile grade, course membership, academic year and any subject-specific exception before interpreting a missing-credit plan.
Official sources
Checked 6 October 2026. These tools use the 2026 NZQA rules and the linked published list snapshots, not a qualification decision.