NTCET explained: the Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training (2026)

If you are at school in the Northern Territory, your senior secondary certificate is the NTCET - the Northern Territory Certificate of Education and Training. The most important thing to know is that the NTCET is not a separate curriculum you have to research on its own. It is the SACE, delivered in the NT, and it is administered by the SACE Board of South Australia.

That means everything we have written for SACE students applies to you.

What "the same as the SACE" actually means

The NTCET shares the SACE's whole structure:

• Two stages. Stage 1 is mostly Year 11, Stage 2 is mostly Year 12, and your ATAR is built from your Stage 2 results.
• The same subjects. The Stage 1 and Stage 2 subjects are the SACE subjects - Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematical Methods, Specialist and General Mathematics, English and English Literary Studies, Psychology, Modern History, Legal Studies, Economics, Accounting, and the rest.
• The same assessment model. Every Stage 2 subject is 70 percent school-assessed (externally moderated) and 30 percent external (an exam, investigation or performance), exactly as in SA.
• The same completion rules. 200 credits, the literacy and numeracy requirements, and the compulsory Stage 2 subject Activating Identities and Futures (AIF), which replaced the Research Project from 2026.

Your ATAR

NTCET students get an ATAR the same way SACE students do. Your subject results are produced by the SACE Board, and your ATAR is calculated by SATAC (the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre), which handles tertiary admissions for both South Australia and the Northern Territory.

To be eligible for an ATAR you need:

• at least 90 credits at Stage 2, and
• at least 60 of those credits from 20-credit Tertiary Admissions Subjects (TAS).

SATAC then scales each subject and combines your best results into your ATAR.

How to use this site if you are an NT student

Use our SACE pages directly. Wherever you see "SACE Stage 2" on this site, read it as "NTCET Stage 2" - the content, the dot points, the assessment weightings and the exam advice are all the same for you.

• Browse the SACE subject library and pick your subjects.
• Work through the Stage 2 dot-point answers for each subject.
• Read the SACE system explainers (scaling, the ATAR, AIF) - they apply to the NTCET unchanged.

The only thing to double-check with your own school and the SACE Board is anything genuinely NT-specific, such as local subject availability and term dates. The qualification itself is the same.