GuidesA closer look
What happened to school deciles?
What school deciles were, how they were worked out, and what replaced them for school funding, as official sources describe it.
Every statement on this page comes from an official source: Ministry of Education (Education Counts), Ministry of Education and New Zealand Government (Govt.nz).
What deciles were for
This is how the Ministry describes the purpose of deciles. Students from low socio-economic communities face more barriers to learning than students from high socio-economic communities.1 Schools that draw their roll from these low socio-economic communities are given greater funding to combat these barriers.2 The mechanism used to calculate and allocate this extra funding was most often known as school deciles.3
How a decile was worked out
- Schools were given a socio-economic score based on five census-derived socio-economic factors.4
- Schools were then ranked by this score and divided into 10 even groups called deciles.5
- The 10 percent of schools with the lowest scores were decile 1 schools, the next 10 percent were decile 2 schools, and so on.6
The Ministry adds a caution about what a high decile meant. Decile 1 schools had the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds and decile 10 schools the least; the Ministry notes this does not mean students from decile 10 schools are 'rich'.7
Deciles were also used beyond funding. Deciles were also used in many of the Ministry of Education's indicators as a proxy for socio-economic status.8
When deciles were replaced
Since January 2023, the Ministry of Education has stopped using the school decile system to distribute funding.9 Equity funding is instead based on the Equity Index.10 From 2023, the Equity Index (EQI) replaced the decile system for deciding how much equity funding a school gets.11
Deciles are no longer kept up to date. School deciles are no longer updated after 2022.12
Through Budget 2022, the Government provided a 50% ($75 million) increase in equity funding.13
Why the Ministry moved away from deciles
Early Ministry analysis compared deciles with a first version of the Equity Index. A Ministry of Education paper compared the Equity Index with school deciles, which it called the Ministry's then-current instrument for identifying the level of disadvantage within a school.14 Its key messages included that deciles are a blunt instrument for identifying the level of disadvantage in a school.15 Across the schools in any given decile, it found large variation in the proportion of students who were disadvantaged.16
That analysis was based on an early version of the index, and the Ministry says the version now in use is different. These results are from the first iteration of the Equity Index methodology.17 The methodology and variables of the Equity Index implemented from January 2023 are different from those documented in that paper.18
The index that replaced deciles took years to build. The Equity Index was under development for several years.19 Over that time, its methodology and the possible ways of using it to allocate resourcing changed several times.20
What replaced deciles
The Equity Index estimates the extent to which young people face socio-economic barriers to achieving in education.21 The Schooling Equity Index uses de-identified data in the Statistics NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI).22
The Ministry is explicit about what the Equity Index is not. The Schooling Equity Index is not a measure of school quality.23 Rather, it is a way to understand the relationship between socio-economic circumstances and student achievement.24
Comparing an old decile with an Equity Index number
An old decile cannot be read across to an Equity Index number. The Equity Index and school decile are different socio-economic measures and are not directly comparable.25 To allow comparison, the Ministry uses the Equity Index for 2023 funding with education data from 2019 to 2022, which lets it extend time series that use the Equity Index by up to four years before the index was introduced.26
Sources
Every statement on this page comes from an official page, quoted in full here.
Each numbered statement above is followed here by the words of the official page it comes from. Every quote was checked against its page on .
“Students from low socio-economic communities face more barriers to learning than students from high socio-economic communities.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Schools that draw their roll from these low socio-economic communities are given greater funding to combat these barriers.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“The mechanism used to calculate and allocate this additional funding is most often known as school deciles.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Schools are assigned a socio-economic score based on five census derived socio-economic factors.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Schools are then ranked in order of this score and divided into 10 even groups called deciles.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“The 10 percent of schools with the lowest scores are considered decile 1 schools, the next 10 percent of schools are considered decile 2 schools, etc.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Decile 1 schools have the highest proportion of low SES students, decile 10 schools have the least (NB: this does not mean students from decile 10 schools are 'rich').”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Deciles are also used in many of the indicators used by the Ministry of Education as a proxy for socio-economic status.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Since January 2023, we have removed the school decile system as a means of distributing funding.”
Ministry of Education · education.govt.nz/our-work/information-releases/issue-specific-… ↑
“Equity funding is instead based on the Equity Index.”
Ministry of Education · education.govt.nz/our-work/information-releases/issue-specific-… ↑
“From 2023 , the Equity Index ( EQI ) replaced the decile system to determine the amount of equity funding a school gets.”
New Zealand Government (Govt.nz) · govt.nz/browse/education/school-and-college/school-zo… ↑
“Note: school decile is no longer updated after 2022.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/glossary-filter ↑
“Through Budget 2022, the Government has provided a 50% ($75 million) increase in equity funding.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/assessing-how-schools-… ↑
“compare the Equity Index with school deciles – our current instrument for identifying the level of disadvantage within a school”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/he-whakaaro/he-whakaaro-a… ↑
“Deciles are a blunt instrument for identifying the level of disadvantage in a school.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/he-whakaaro/he-whakaaro-a… ↑
“Across the schools in any given decile, we see large variation in the proportion of their students who are disadvantaged”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/he-whakaaro/he-whakaaro-a… ↑
“These results are from the first iteration of the Equity Index methodology.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/he-whakaaro/he-whakaaro-a… ↑
“From January 2023 the Ministry will be implementing a new Equity Index for schooling. The methodology and variables for this are different to those documented in this report.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/he-whakaaro/he-whakaaro-a… ↑
“The Equity Index has been under development for several years.”
Ministry of Education · education.govt.nz/our-work/information-releases/issue-specific-… ↑
“Over that time, multiple changes have been made to its methodology, and possible approaches to using the Index to allocate resourcing.”
Ministry of Education · education.govt.nz/our-work/information-releases/issue-specific-… ↑
“The Equity Index estimates the extent to which young people face socio-economic barriers to achieving in education.”
Ministry of Education · education.govt.nz/our-work/information-releases/issue-specific-… ↑
“The Schooling EQI uses de-identified data in the Statistics NZ Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI).”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/code-sets-and-classifications/t… ↑
“The Schooling EQI is not a measure of school quality.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/code-sets-and-classifications/t… ↑
“Rather, it is a way to understand the relationship between socio-economic circumstances and student achievement.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/code-sets-and-classifications/t… ↑
“The Equity Index and School Decile are different socioeconomic measures and are not directly comparable.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/guidelines/school-equity-index-… ↑
“To allow comparison, the Ministry uses the Equity Index for 2023 funding with education data from 2019-2022. This allows the Ministry to extend time-series that use the Equity Index by up to four years prior to the introduction of the index itself.”
Ministry of Education (Education Counts) · educationcounts.govt.nz/data-services/guidelines/school-equity-index-… ↑