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“We need to always uphold the mana of the child and their family – and remember when we are collecting information about a student – it’s their IP – they and their whānau have a right to it.” (Principal)

We need to create a trusted environment for information sharing, so students, whānau, schools and kura can confidently share information about learner progress knowing that it will be used safely and well.

To help build trust and confidence, we’re looking into how we could approach setting up an independent governance group for education data protection and use.  We’ll make sure that we collect, use and share progress information safely, legally, ethically, within privacy requirements, and in ways that respect cultural differences.  The work of the Social Investment Agency to develop a Data Protection and Use Policy for the wider social sector provides a strong foundation. We now need to focus on working out what this looks like when applied to the education sector.

Data Protection and Use Policy for the wider social sector — Social Investment Agency website

We’ll do this work together with Māori and Pacific, teachers, leaders, students, their parents and whānau, building on what we’ve heard through the Education Conversation | Kōrero Mātauranga.

With the appropriate protections in place, aspects of records of learning may provide Boards of Trustees, Kāhui Ako, the Ministry and other government agencies with information they need about what’s working well for students, what needs to be improved and where more resources or support are needed.

About Records of Learning

We know there are concerns that student progress information could be used to create league tables that stigmatise schools and their students. So we’ll look at ways to make sure that information about student progress cannot be used in ways that are harmful to the interests of students, their parents and whānau, schools or kura.

And we will develop services for schools that help them analyse and interpret information to inform teaching and learning.