Understanding the Equity Index (EQI): What Every Parent Needs to Know

When I (Matt - BoundFor Creator) started researching schooling options for my then 4 year old, the first thing I encountered in my search was a number between 344 and 569 that nobody had bothered to explain when I was expecting a decile number. It's called the Equity Index, or EQI for short. If you're looking at schools in New Zealand right now, you may (or may not) have encountered it and potentially were confused when you too had expected to see deciles. Fun fact, this problem is what inspired me to create BoundFor!

The Equity Index replaced the old decile system in January 2023, and the Ministry of Education now uses it to work out how much equity funding each school receives. It is not a measure of school quality. This guide explains what the EQI is, how it's worked out, and how to use it when you're choosing a school for your child.

Quick facts

• Range: 344 (fewest barriers) to 569 (most barriers)
• Replaced deciles: 1 January 2023
• What it looks at: 37 things about students and their families
• Data source: anonymous Stats NZ data, drawn from across government
• Updated: every year
• What it measures: the community a school serves, not the quality of the school

Why did New Zealand move away from deciles?

For decades, New Zealand schools were grouped into deciles: ten bands from Decile 1 (most disadvantaged) to Decile 10 (least disadvantaged). The system was only ever designed for funding, but over time a lot of parents started to treat it as a quality rating. A "Decile 10 school" was assumed to be a good school, and a "Decile 1 school" a poor one. Deciles were never supposed to measure that.

The system had practical problems, too. It used census data about the neighbourhoods students lived in, not data about the students themselves. If a family in a wealthy suburb sent their child to a school across town, that school's decile wouldn't really reflect the student's circumstances. Many decile ratings also hadn't been recalculated in years because of issues with the 2018 census, so school rolls had shifted without the funding model catching up.

In September 2019 the government announced the decile system would be replaced. Several years of work followed, involving the education sector, Statistics NZ, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the Ombudsman. The Equity Index came into effect on 1 January 2023, and Budget 2022 increased the total equity funding pool by 50 percent — an extra $75 million a year.

What is the Equity Index (EQI)?

The Equity Index is a single number that tries to capture how much disadvantage the students at a particular school are dealing with, on average. By "disadvantage" the Ministry means things like family income, parents' education, and contact with services like Oranga Tamariki (child welfare).

Every state and state-integrated school in New Zealand gets an EQI number somewhere between 344 and 569. That includes kura kaupapa Māori and other Māori-medium state schools — they're funded through the same model as English-medium state schools.

Which way the number runs:

• Lower EQI (closer to 344) means students at the school face fewer barriers on average.
• Higher EQI (closer to 569) means students at the school face more barriers on average.

The EQI decides how much equity funding the school gets on top of its core operational funding. A higher EQI means more equity funding per student, because those students are more likely to need extra support.

Who doesn't get an EQI number?

A few types of schools sit outside the EQI:

• Private schools. They're outside the state funding model entirely.
• Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu (the Correspondence School). Its nationwide student body means a single EQI doesn't really fit.
• Some specialist schools. Teen Parent Units, Activity Centres, Regional Health Schools and a small number of very small schools are given the maximum EQI of 569 to reflect the particular challenges their students face.

How is a school's EQI number worked out?

This is where the EQI differs most from the old decile system. Instead of looking at the neighbourhood, it looks at the actual students enrolled at the school.

Stats NZ already holds anonymous information about every New Zealander, pulled together from across government. Things like income, benefits, and qualifications — with no names attached. The EQI uses that information for the kids who've been enrolled at each school over the most recent three years.

It looks at 37 things about students and their families, grouped into four areas:

• Family and whānau circumstances. What parents earn (whether from wages or self-employment), whether they've received benefits, and how far they got in their own education.
• Contact with government services. Oranga Tamariki (child welfare) notifications, contact with the justice system, youth justice conferences.
• About the student. How often they change home or school, their ethnicity, whether they migrated to New Zealand.
• How earlier kids went. The model looks at how a group of kids from about twenty years ago turned out, to figure out which of these things matter most for how children do at school.

Once it knows which factors matter most (measured by NCEA results), it adds them up for the actual students at each school. That gives the school its EQI number.

The key point is that the EQI is about real students, not the area around the school. Two schools on the same street can have quite different EQI numbers if their student populations are different.

How often is it updated?

The EQI is worked out fresh every year using the latest data. Year-to-year changes are smoothed, so schools don't see big funding swings if their number moves a little.

What are EQI bands and groups?

For reporting purposes, the Ministry of Education groups schools into seven EQI Bands, each containing roughly the same number of schools. From fewest to most barriers:

1. Fewest barriers
2. Few barriers
3. Below average barriers
4. Average barriers
5. Above average barriers
6. Many barriers
7. Most barriers

The seven bands are then rolled up into three broader EQI Groups:

• Fewer barriers (Bands 1–2)
• Moderate barriers (Bands 3–5)
• More barriers (Bands 6–7)

You'll see both the bands and the groups used in official statistics, Education Review Office (ERO) reports, and on platforms like BoundFor.

What does the EQI look like across New Zealand?

EQI averages vary a lot by region. Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) has the highest reported regional average at around 506, followed by Tairāwhiti (491) and Bay of Plenty (489). Auckland and Canterbury sit lowest, at around 444. There's huge variation inside every region, though — Auckland in particular contains the full sweep of the scale, from primary schools at the floor of 344 right through to schools well into the "most" barriers band.

Three Auckland primaries

To show how this works in practice, here are three state primary schools from across Auckland — one on the North Shore, one in the west, and one in the south:

Campbells Bay School

Years 1–6 (Contributing)

Castor Bay, North Shore

On Auckland's North Shore, Campbells Bay School has an EQI of 344 — the lowest possible score on the scale, putting it in the "fewest" barriers band. The students at this school, on average, face very few of the disadvantages the EQI is designed to capture.

Tirimoana School

Years 1–6 (Contributing)

Te Atatū South, West Auckland

Across the harbour in West Auckland, Tirimoana School in Te Atatū South has an EQI of 417, sitting in the "below average" barriers band. Its students face more barriers than those at Campbells Bay, on average, but still fewer than the national midpoint.

Māngere Central School

Years 1–8 (Full Primary)

Māngere, South Auckland

And in South Auckland, Māngere Central School has an EQI of 503 — placing it in the "most" barriers band. Its students, on average, face the most significant set of barriers the EQI measures.

These three schools sit in completely different parts of Auckland — the North Shore, the western suburbs, and the south — and the EQI numbers tell very different stories about the communities they serve. None of the numbers say anything about the quality of teaching, leadership or pastoral care at any of them — and that's the point worth holding onto when you use this number in real life.

How is the EQI different from the old decile system?

If you grew up with deciles, here are the differences that actually matter:

	Decile system	Equity Index (EQI)
Scale	1–10 (10 bands)	344–569 (continuous, 7 bands)
Direction	Decile 1 = most disadvantaged	Higher number = more barriers
What it looks at	Census data about the neighbourhood	Anonymous Stats NZ data about the actual students
What goes in	5 census-based factors	37 factors
Update frequency	Roughly every 5 years (whenever the census ran)	Every year
Granularity	Same for all schools in a neighbourhood	Different for each school, based on who's enrolled

The biggest shift is from looking at the area to looking at the students. Under deciles, two schools on the same street ended up with similar ratings no matter who actually went there. Under the EQI, the same two schools can have meaningfully different numbers because the model is looking at the kids actually enrolled.

Don't try to convert a decile into an EQI, or the other way around. They measure different things in different ways. A school that was Decile 8 under the old system could sit almost anywhere on the EQI range, depending on who attends today.

Does the EQI tell me anything about school quality?

No, and this is worth being clear about: the EQI is not a quality rating.

It doesn't measure:

• How well a school teaches
• NCEA pass rates or achievement levels
• The quality of school leadership
• Pastoral care, student wellbeing, or culture
• What ERO has said about the school in its reviews
• Whether your child will thrive there

What it does measure is the makeup of the students enrolled at the school. A high-EQI school can have excellent teaching, a strong community and great student outcomes. A low-EQI school can still have issues with leadership or pastoral care despite an affluent roll.

Where the EQI fits in your school search

So if the EQI doesn't measure quality, why does BoundFor put it front and centre on every school profile? Honest answer: because it's the only single number that every state school in New Zealand has, worked out the same way, refreshed every year. That makes it the most useful piece of orientation you can start a school search from. In one number, it tells you what kind of community a school sits in before you've read a single ERO report or stepped onto the grounds.

Use the EQI to understand the school, not to rank it. Once you know whether a school sits in a "fewer", "moderate" or "more" barriers band, the rest of your research has somewhere to land. ERO reports read differently when you know that context. School visits feel different when you've thought about who else is enrolled. NCEA results mean something else when you know what the kids walked in with.

The way I think about it: the EQI is the entrance to your research, not the verdict at the end of it. It orients you. You still need everything else — ERO reports, visits, conversations with the principal, conversations with current parents — to actually decide whether a school is right for your child.

That's also why BoundFor doesn't let you sort schools by EQI. Sorting turns a context number into a ranking, which is exactly the trap deciles fell into. We put the EQI front and centre so you start informed, but we want you to compare schools on what actually matters once you are.

How do I find a school's EQI number?

There are a few ways to look up any school's EQI:

• Education Counts. The Ministry of Education publishes EQI numbers for every state and state-integrated school at educationcounts.govt.nz.
• BoundFor. Search for any school at boundfor.co.nz/explore and you'll see the EQI alongside other key data, with enough context to actually compare schools.
• The school itself. Schools know their own EQI and will usually tell you if you ask.

What does EQI stand for?

EQI stands for Equity Index. It's a number the Ministry of Education has used since January 2023 to capture the barriers students at a school face on average, and to work out how much equity funding the school gets.

Is a lower or higher EQI number better?

Neither, because they measure different things. A lower EQI (closer to 344) means students at the school face fewer barriers on average. A higher EQI (closer to 569) means they face more. The EQI is not a quality rating.

Do private schools have an EQI number?

No. Private schools sit outside the state equity funding system and don't get an EQI.

Can I compare a school's old decile rating to its new EQI?

Not directly. Deciles used census data about neighbourhoods and grouped schools into 10 bands. The EQI uses 37 things about the actual students. They're different measures, so a direct conversion isn't really meaningful.

How often does a school's EQI number change?

The EQI is worked out fresh every year using the latest Stats NZ data. The change is smoothed, so schools don't see sudden funding swings.

What should I do next?

The EQI is useful context, but it's only one data point. If you're researching schools for your family, here's the order I'd suggest:

1. Start with the EQI to orient yourself. Search for any school on BoundFor and the EQI will tell you what kind of community it sits in before you go any deeper.
2. Layer ERO on top. Read the ERO report for any school you're seriously considering. ERO reviews are the closest thing we have to an independent quality assessment, and BoundFor helps distill what matters most to you (you can build your own report here!).
3. Visit the school. No data point replaces walking the grounds, meeting the principal, and getting a feel for the culture.