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A problem has disrupted this morning's online NCEA level 2 English exam.

The Qualifications Authority website displayed a message saying it was working to fix a problem with the digital exam platform earlier this morning.

The message was later updated to say there had been some improvement in the platform's performance.

"If you are able to continue with digital exams, please do so. If you are unable to continue digitally, please move students to paper exams where this is possible," the message said.

"We recognise this may not be possible in every situation. Derived grades at scale will be available for students who are unable to complete their exam."

Teachers contacted RNZ about the problem saying students were unable to log into the exam.

One said it was "a nightmare".

NZQA told RNZ the problem related to the transfer of student responses from the exam platform to its marking platform overnight.

"Schools were advised that if students were able to continue with digital exams, they should do so. Students unable to continue digitally were moved to paper exams where this was possible," it said.

NZQA said the problem was resolved at 10.35am.

"Derived grades will be available for students who are unable to complete their exam, or whose performance was impaired by the disruption."

Education Minister Erica Stanford said she'd been briefed by NZQA about the issue as soon as they became aware.

"I understand this was an isolated incident and that NZQA have identified the cause of the outage and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again. All students were given additional time to complete the exam."

She said she would meet with NZQA on Thursday afternoon to make sure no student was disadvantaged.