New Zealand Certificate in Commercial Barbering Level 4 review

Updated November 2025

Toi Mai has completed the review of New Zealand Certificate in Commercial Barbering (Level 4) [Ref: 2115] and associated standards.

These have now been approved by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) with more information available on the NZQA website:

• Qualification overview 

• Domain: Barbering standards

• Change reports schedule  

• Review summary

Main changes to the qualification include:

• Strategic purpose statement updated to remove ‘independently’ and ‘standalone’. 

• Employment pathways updated to remove ‘independently’. 

• Qualification specifications updated and changes made to statements for qualification award, consistency requirements, general conditions. 

• GPO statements split from three to five GPOs to align with mandatory skill standards. 

• Old GPO 1 was split into two. (GPO1 and GPO2). 

• New GPO5 was added to cover business practices for commercial barbering operations. 

• Mandatory skill standards were added as conditions against qualification GPOs.

New commercial barbering skill standards