If you want a snapshot of how secondary education in New Zealand is changing, the numbers from 2025 tell a clear story: students are increasingly choosing life skills and personal development, while traditional academic subjects like science and English are slowly losing ground.
According to Education Ministry data, one in five secondary students studied a life skills or personal development course in 2025. That’s a massive jump from just 8% in 2010 to 21% today, representing nearly 68,000 students. Almost half of those students were in Year 9, suggesting this shift is happening early in secondary school.
Life skills is a broad category — it can include everything from wellbeing and resilience to practical day-to-day capabilities — but the growth trend is undeniable.
Study Skills and Practical Learning Are Rising Fast
Life skills aren’t the only non-traditional courses gaining popularity. Study skills programmes have also surged, growing from 5% of students in 2010 to 13% in 2025. Interestingly, half of those students were in Year 13, pointing to growing concern about readiness for tertiary study or employment.
Commerce-related subjects are another winner, more than doubling in popularity over the same period. Health and physical education participation also climbed overall, even though traditional physical education classes declined.
Together, these trends suggest students — and schools — are prioritising practical, transferable skills over purely academic ones.
Core Subjects: Still Strong, But Clearly Slipping
English remains the most widely studied subject in New Zealand secondary schools, with 80% of students enrolled in 2025. But that’s down from 87% in 2010.
Maths enrolments also declined overall, from 78% to 67%, though there’s a twist: higher-level maths is growing. Enrolments in maths with statistics and calculus both increased, suggesting fewer students are taking maths, but those who do are more likely to take it seriously.
Science shows a similar pattern. Overall participation dropped from 58% to 52%, but biology and chemistry held steady, while physics and earth science actually grew slightly.
In other words: broad participation is shrinking, but subject depth is holding — or even improving — among committed students.
Arts and Traditional Technologies Are Losing Ground
The arts are taking a hit. Visual arts, drama, and music all saw notable declines over the past 15 years. Dance was the only arts subject to see any growth, and even that increase was modest.
Technology subjects paint a mixed picture. Food technology and materials technology remain popular, but areas like graphics and general technology have dropped sharply. Home economics continues a long, slow decline.
What Changes When Students Get More Choice?
The picture shifts again when you look only at Year 12 subject choices, where students have fewer compulsory subjects and are often thinking about tertiary study or careers.
English still dominates, but maths and science participation becomes more specialised. About one-third of Year 12 students study biology, physics, or chemistry. Commerce subjects, economics, and transition-to-employment programmes all show strong growth, reinforcing the idea that students are thinking pragmatically about their futures.
Life skills, pre-employment, and study skills courses also remain popular at this level — not fringe options, but mainstream choices.
What This Really Tells Us
This isn’t a story about students “giving up” on academic learning. It’s a story about changing priorities.
Students are responding to a world that feels less predictable and more demanding in practical terms. They want skills that help them manage life, work, money, stress, and transition beyond school — not just pass exams.
Whether the education system is keeping pace with that shift — and how well these courses are designed and delivered — is the real question. But one thing is clear: life skills are no longer an add-on. They’re central to how many students experience secondary education in New Zealand today.
