Commercial applicants wishing to use NZQA copyrighted examination papers in their publications

Application form

Word or PDF

NCEA examination papers

Examination papers and charges

NZQA owns the copyright to NCEA examination papers and may consent to a commercial applicant using these papers in their publications on payment of a fee. The scale of copyright charges for NCEA papers should be read before any application is submitted. Resource booklets (if any) are treated as part of the paper. Application approval for the use of assessment schedules (mark schemes) can be made by early March of the year following the examination and will be charged for. The charge for each paper is based upon the current development cost to the Authority.

Application process

Complete the application form (see top of this page), identifying the standards and levels of the papers to be used and send it to the Secondary Examinations section of NZQA. The applicant should ensure that enough material to be published is attached to clearly show how the papers, in whole or in part, will be used.

The Authority can provide, on request and payment of a small extra fee, electronic copy of the requested papers and/or schedules.

Examination resources

NZQA has a copyright waiver for the use of audio and visual material provided for use at examination centres for such subjects as music and drama. The copyright of this type of materials is held by third parties and approval for use should be sought from the copyright holders rather than from NZQA.

Conditions

Written acknowledgement must be given to NZQA at the beginning of the publication. The acknowledgement must state that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority owns the copyright of the paper or questions reproduced and has consented to the reproduction of that paper or questions. In addition, the authors/publishers must clearly distinguish material developed by the Authority from material produced by or for the authors/publishers.

A copy of the publication should be lodged with NZQA.

Part 2 Section 49 of the Copyright Act 1994 allows the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to waive the copyright of third parties to produce national examination papers. NCEA examination questions may, therefore, use material for which the copyright is held by a third party and it is the applicant's responsibility to apply for copyright use to the third party.

New Zealand Scholarship examination papers

New Zealand Scholarship papers will be available from 2005. NZQA charges a flat fee of $500 for use of the whole or part of each paper. Any resource booklet is treated as part of the paper.

The information given for NCEA papers above also applies to New Zealand Scholarship papers.

University Bursaries examination papers

The University Bursaries examination was discontinued in 2003.

NZQA charges a flat copyright fee of $500 per examination paper for the reproduction of more than three questions from a particular paper. The fee must be paid prior to publication.

Two or three questions from any one year in a particular subject may be reproduced at no charge. However, permission must be sought from NZQA and details of the questions required should be provided.

"Model answers" must be produced as part of the publication. Questions cannot be produced by themselves. Permission will not be granted to a commercial publisher if the publication concerned will simply reproduce questions and model answers.

Publishers who are given permission to reproduce examination questions must embed the questions within the text. Questions must not be reproduced as an "appendix" at the back of the book.

Written acknowledgement must be given to NZQA at the beginning of the publication. The acknowledgement must state that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority owns the copyright of the paper or questions reproduced and has consented to the reproduction of that paper or questions. In addition, the authors/publishers must clearly distinguish material developed by the Authority from material produced by or for the authors/publishers.

Further information

Any questions relating to copyright should be referred to:

Page updated: 09 December 2008