This paper discusses the transition from school to further and higher education in New Zealand following the recent implementation of the National Qualifications Framework. While a genuinely "seamless" interface is emerging between upper secondary schooling and further education in the context of vocational programmes, the transition from school to university has been made more complicated owing to the complexity of the redefined university entrance requirements, and comparability issues arising from the existence of the two different kinds of curricular delivery and assessment modules that are in use (unit standards and achievement standards). The paper highlights the continuing anomaly of the possibility of entry to university degree programmes from the penultimate year of secondary schooling.