Tauranga students can now access their NCEA results after the New Zealand Qualifications Authority released them online this morning.

A total of 163,000 students throughout the country can check their results online today – a day after a blunder allowed students results to be viewed online early.

Otumoetai College head girl Josephine Shum anxiously checks her NCEA results today.

NZQA was undertaking testing on the site yesterday when student's preliminary results were made available before being removed a short time after.

The authority is currently reviewing its testing policy in wake of the blunder.

There are also reports students are having trouble accessing the site as the authorities servers are at maximum capacity due to the high traffic on site.

Among the thousands anxiously checking their results today is Otumoetai College head girl Josephine Shum.

Josephine received a merit endorsement, falling slightly short of her hopes for an excellence.

She is still happy with her results, especially after an academic year that involved juggling head girl duties as well.

'I knew they weren't going to be as good this year because I was a head student. I helped organise the school ball and leavers' dinner and took six subjects instead of the normal five,” she says.

With the results in, Josephine says she can now relax, reassured that she has done her best.

'My parents are really proud because they know how hard I worked this year. Now I'm just looking forward to enjoying the rest of my holidays.”

Josephine plans to study engineering at Canterbury University in early February.

Otumoetai College Principal Dave Randell says the results of the external exams sat in November 2012 are important to both teachers and students.

Dave says teachers will be able to improve and adapt their teaching practises according to the results.

Likewise, students about to enter their final year at college may reflect upon their results and change subjects.

'95 per cent of the students will stay with their chosen subjects but some will change accordingly.”

He is expecting his head students to do well this year, and is particularly proud of the way the students have balanced head student duties as well as their subjects.

'It's a tall order to balance leadership and academic duties. I'm looking forward to seeing both of them do well.”