382 (2026). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister for Vocational Education

382 (2026). Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall to the Minister for Vocational Education: How many Oral Health Therapists graduated from New Zealand education providers in each of the last five years, broken down by education provider and qualification type where applicable?

Hon Penny Simmonds: I am advised by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) that the number of qualification completions in 2025 will not be finalised until May 2026. I refer the member to the attached table below for the number of learners eligible for TEC funding who completed an Oral Health Therapists qualification between 2020 and 2024. This is limited to approved pre-registration qualifications as determined by the Dental Council of New Zealand. All learner numbers in this information request have been rounded to the nearest five. Therefore, the sum of learners by individual categories may not equal the totals in the table. Caveats: Data is as at 4-Feb-2026 for reporting years 2020 to 2024 as reported and has been sourced through administrative data held by the TEC. Data is limited to domestic learners who were eligible for TEC funding only. The list of approved pre-registration Oral Health Therapist qualifications have been sourced from Prescribed qualifications for oral health therapists » Dental Council. Results are based on information reported through the Single Data Return (SDR) for the purposes of funding tertiary education. The data does not include any reporting outside of the SDR and relies on the accuracy of data reported by TEOs.