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As you are looking to enter tertiary education at the equivalent level of the first year of university in most cases, you need to demonstrate you can achieve and succeed in learning. The way you do this for us is by providing us with an educational history; this is important for all applicants to do, if they have an educational history, and required for students who are 17, 18 or 19 years old.
For applicants who are 20 and older, we look at work history too, so if you left high school and went into the work force, not having undertaken any further education, you can supply us with your work history through your Curriculum Vitae.
Like in a court case, we need evidence to back-up your claims or we rule these as inadmissible. For example, if you tell us you gained a Certificate in Underwater Basketweaving (Level 4) from the Underwater Basketweaving and Knitting School of New Zealand, but you have no evidence of this (i.e. a certificate, letter from the provider or official academic transcript), we can’t use this as evidence. See this from our point of view: What’s to stop anyone from saying they have the Certificate in Underwater Basketweaving (Level 4)? They might have it; they might not. You can’t get convicted of a crime if there isn’t some pretty strong evidence against you; the same applies here. We need evidence-based facts to support your claims.
In saying this, there are a few terms I’d like to put forward here that we have in our forms; this hopefully will help clarify some matters for you.
What is a completed course or qualification?
Completed only means you got to the end of the course; this does not mean you passed or failed the course, only that you got through the entire course.
What is a successfully completed course or qualification?
Successfully completed means you got to the end of the course and you passed everything. You received a certificate or diploma as a result.
We use the words course and qualification interchangeably. There seems to be some confusion in these terms, but when we use them, we use either to mean a programme of study that leads to the awarding of a certificate or diploma.
The absolute minimum educational standard we will accept for applicants between 17 and 19 is the National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) Level 1. You need to have the:
- Actual NCEA (Level 1) certificate; or
- A Record of Learning from NZQA stating you have:
- 80 or more credits at Level 1 or higher; and
- 8 or more credits in literacy; and
- 8 or more credits in numeracy; or
- A letter from your school stating you are expected to meet the requirements for achieving NCEA (Level 1).
We also only look for NZQA-Approved courses or their overseas equivalents. This means a certificate for being the best underwater basket weaver at work or doing a short course through work to update your underwater basketweaving skills in most cases will not be acceptable for our educational history purposes; you may wish to submit these for your work history purposes to show you have learned at work.
As always, if you are uncertain or need further clarification on any matter, please feel free to contact our offices during office hours, and we will be more than happy to assist you as best as we can.
Scott Fack is the Director of Operations for The National School of Aesthetics, the South Island’s leading beauty therapy, nail technology and spa therapies training provider.