Many non-ACE courses receive approval by the NZ Academic Council as suitable courses to be credited for the ACE Certificates. By our calculations students can have up to 4 non-ACE credits in a NZ ACE Certificate – Level 1. Lynelle already has a list of non-ACE preapproved courses that she can credit to students as a local school course. If your student wishes to extend their options now is a great time to plan for next year and to contact Lynelle for a submission to the NZ Academic Council for approval for a course. It is very important to receive this approval before doing a course. Don’t wait until a course is finished.

Usually 10 NCEA or NZQA credits will achieve 1/2 a credit for the purposes of an ACE certificate and 20 credits will usually achieve 1 credit. With the change of the ACE certificates our levels now correspond with NCEA/NZQA levels so a level 1 credit will be a comparable level to NZ ACE Certificate – Level 1 and so forth. If a course has a mixture of levels then the lowest level will be the level at which it is credited. The New Zealand Correspondence School can be a valuable source of extending the curriculum available to students. Students aged 16 or older can enrol in courses as adults for no fees. A good way to investigate this option is through their website http://www.correspondence.school.nz/. Also consider courses offered by local schools and polytechnics. Enrolments for 2015 should be open now for most polytechs. By our calculations a Level 1 certificate can have up to 4 non-ACE credits. Just remember for secondary students, contact Lynelle so that she can submit an application to the Academic Council to have it approved. It is not inevitable that an NCEA or NZQA course will receive approval from the Academic Council. They also consider other criteria.