Victorian Student Number (VSN) for students in Victoria.
The Victorian Government is proposing the implementation of a Victorian Student Number (VSN) for students in Victoria. The VSN will be unique to each student and will improve the monitoring of student movement and achievement across the education and training system. Based on current scheduling, it is anticipated that the issuing of VSNs will commence in 2009.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why do we need a VSN?
- Which students will have a VSN?
- Can the VSN be used by students over 24?
- What is required in order to initially allocate a VSN to a student?
- What information will be required when students enrol in subsequent schools or other education providers?
- Where will the VSN be located and who will be responsible for managing it?
- What information will be stored in the Victorian Student Register (VSR)?
- Is a student’s privacy protected?
- Will the VSN become a defacto Victorian or national identifier?
- Is the VSN linked with the Australian Government’s proposed Access Card?
- How will education providers be able to access information for each student and what safeguards will be imposed?
- Who has access to a student’s VSN?
- Will parents be informed of the child’s VSN?
- Will Parents have access to their child’s information held within the VSR?
- Can parents refuse to have a VSN allocated to their child?
- Can organisations outside of Victoria request a student’s VSN?
- Has the Victorian Privacy Commissioner been consulted about the VSN-VSR?
- What is the expected timeline for the implementation of the VSN?
- Is it intended to issue a student card that includes the VSN?
- Will the VSN be linked with records in other departments (eg Health, Justice, VicRoads)?
- Can a student have multiple VSNs?
Additional questions for education providers
- How will the introduction of the VSN impact education providers?
- Who will manage the VSR and what will this involve?
- What support will be available to providers to assist in the implementation of the VSN within their environments?
Why do we need a VSN?
Currently Victoria does not have an ongoing record of individual student progress across educational providers. This restricts the capacity to gather and retain:
• Accurate knowledge of student location and retention rates
• Patterns of student under performance and premature departure.
This information plays an important role in planning future investment in education and training, particularly in addressing areas of student need.
The VSN has the potential to provide accurate information on a student’s movement through the educational system eg, as they move from school to school or leave and re-appear within the post compulsory years.
This will provide more accurate, longer term, and individualised destination data, allowing the education system to clearly identify students who have dropped out of the system and highlight students who may be ‘at risk’ due to multiple movements within the education system. This will enable timely intervention and support.
A VSN also provides the capability to perform more comprehensive research and evaluation of programs and strategies, as well to support student requirements to be able to pull together a comprehensive record of their achievements over time.
Which students will have a VSN?
A VSN will be allocated to each student enrolled within Victoria’s school and Vocational Education and Training (VET) sectors. The school sector includes Government, Catholic and Independent primary and secondary schools, while the VET sector includes TAFE Institutes, adult community and further education (ACFE) centres and private registered training organisations (RTOs). At present, it is envisaged that it will not be mandatory for students over age 24 to provide a VSN when enrolling.
The VSN will also not be required to enrol within Victorian universities. However, in the future Victorian universities may elect to use the VSN within their own systems.
Can the VSN be used by students over 24?
Yes. Use of a VSN after age 24 will be encouraged but at present is not envisaged to be compulsory. It is considered that many students will see the benefits in maintaining a comprehensive record of their educational and training activities over their lifetime and will choose to provide the VSN at enrolment.
What is required in order to initially allocate a VSN to a student?
A VSN will be allocated to a student at the first Victorian education provider in which they enrol. This may be their Prep year at school or, in certain circumstances such as moving from interstate or overseas, it would be their first enrolment in a Victorian education provider (school, TAFE, ACFE or Private RTO).
In order to allocate the VSN, evidence of identity would be required at this point of first registration. It is expected that this would include the student’s birth or immigration certificate or equivalent, and possibly additional identifying documentation (such as immunisation certificates for prep students and other ‘points based’ identification documentation for vocational education students).
What information will be required when students enrol in subsequent schools or other education providers?
Once a VSN is allocated it can be used by the student to enrol in subsequent education providers.
Where will the VSN be located and who will be responsible for managing it?
The limited information collected from a student in order to issue a VSN will be located within a central registry called the Victorian Student Register (VSR).
The VSR will be governed by a board consisting of senior members of the government and non-government education provider community and will be managed and operated by a Victorian Government agency.
What information will be stored in the Victorian Student Register (VSR)?
The VSR will contain only minimal student information including name, date-of-birth and gender,.
Over time it will also include the student’s enrolment history, this being the education provider’s identifier and name, the date the student enrolled at the education institution and the date they left. Education providers will be required to provide this information to the VSR each time a student enrols or leaves their educational institution.
The VSR will not record any information regarding a student’s course, contact information, demographic information, achievements, results, health or pastoral information. This information will remain under the control and governance of the existing custodians of that information (eg. individual education provider organisations and education and training authorities such as the VCAA and VRQA).
Is a student’s privacy protected?
Strict privacy protocols will be applied to the collection of data used to generate a VSN. All Victorian Student Numbers and associated information held within the VSR will be subject to strict protocols covering access to and use of information. A formal Privacy Impact Assessment has been conducted, and has been used to guide the drafting of relevant legislation.
Will the VSN become a defacto Victorian or national identifier?
No. The VSN is restricted to use for educational purposes within the Victorian education sector only and its use will be controlled by legislation prohibiting its use outside the sector.
Is the VSN linked with the Australian Government’s proposed Access Card?
No, there is no connection whatsoever.
How will education providers be able to access information for each student and what safeguards will be imposed?
The VSR maintains information about education providers with which the student has been enrolled. It is envisaged that, where appropriate, applications may be made to access this data. Such application would be subject to appropriate permissions and enforcement of policy and access controls, and data exchange protocols.
Permitted use of the VSN and the underpinning VSR will be incorporated within legislation to bring full effect to the control measures. It is anticipated that this use will be restricted to:
• monitoring and ensuring a student's enrolment;
• ensuring education providers and students receive appropriate resourcing;
• statistical purposes;
• research purposes; and
• ensuring that students' educational records are accurately maintained.
It is also recognised that certain categories of student, will need to be excluded from the register or have their records made inaccessible, because of their personal situations.
Who has access to a student’s VSN?
The VSN is intended to be an actively used number. Each student will know their own Victorian Student Number and normally that students’ parents or guardians will as well. Any authorised uses of a VSN and its associated information will be well documented, publicised and underpinned by law. The VSN will, for example, over time be included within all formal student information records.
Will parents be informed of the child’s VSN?
Yes, where appropriate, parents of students in the compulsory years of schooling will know the students VSN.
Will Parents have access to their child’s information held within the VSR?
Parents of students in the compulsory years of schooling may request a transcript of the information held within the VSR related to their child. Exceptions will exist based upon legal and other restrictions imposed by courts, custodial parents and, in some cases students themselves.
Can parents refuse to have a VSN allocated to their child?
No, all students up to the age of 24 will be required to have a VSN.
Can organisations outside of Victoria request a student’s VSN?
The VSN is intended for use in the Victorian education sector only. Restrictions will be enforced by legislation.
Has the Victorian Privacy Commissioner been consulted about the VSN-VSR?
Consultation with the Victorian Privacy Commissioner was undertaken during the early development stages of this initiative. Further consultation has taken place during the formal Privacy Impact Assessment (PDF - 463Kb), and during the drafting of the legislation
What is the expected timeline for the implementation of the VSN?
The development of the VSR and the deployment of the VSN across all providers in the school and VET sectors is expected to take around three years. The VSN will be introduced in government schools to begin with, followed by the independent school sectors and Vocational Education sectors.
Is it intended to issue a student card that includes the VSN?
It is not the intention of the Victorian Government to create student cards based on a student’s VSN. However, some providers already issue student identity cards to support operations within their institutions – the future recording of the VSN on this card is a matter for these providers to determine.
Will the VSN be linked with records in other departments (eg Health, Justice, VicRoads)?
No. The VSN is restricted to use in the Victorian education sector only and its use will be controlled by legislation prohibiting its use, as an identifier, outside the sector.
Can a student have multiple VSNs?
As a general rule, students will only have one VSN. It is anticipated that personal circumstances may arise in which it is necessary to ‘cancel’ a VSN and issue an additional VSN. It is also possible that duplicate VSNs may be issued inadvertently, or that more than one student is issued with the same VSN; system and process controls will be in place to reduce these instances to a minimum.
Additonal Questions for Education Providers
How will the introduction of the VSN impact education providers?
Education providers will need to support the following VSN-VSR functions. It is anticipated that these processes would be automated.
During student enrolment:
• Verify a student’s VSN by cross checking it against the VSR records. This would take the form of establishing the accuracy of the student’s “identifying” details, such as name and date of birth against the VSR which would be available online.
If a VSN is not presented, education providers will need to:
• check with the VSR for the existence of a previously assigned VSN for the student, or
• initiate the creation of a VSN for the student where one does not already exist.
For enrolled students, providers will be required to maintain an accurate record of the VSN for all students enrolled with the provider.
It will also be necessary for the provider to inform the VSR when a student enrols in that provider and when they depart that provider.
Over time, it will be necessary to include the VSN in specified returns/reports about students (eg those related to activity or status) to education authorities such as the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) and the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) and the relevant government and non government education departments. It is anticipated that this will require inclusion of each student’s VSN in the student’s record/s within the provider.
Who will manage the VSR and what will this involve?
The VSR will be managed by an agency or ‘authority’ within the Victorian Government’s Education Portfolio.
On an ongoing basis the program management will involve: operation, and, where required, maintenance of the VSR, call centre support for providers, ongoing training and implementation support for new providers and provider staff, and decision making regarding use of information held within the VSR.
The VSR will be governed by a board consisting of senior members of the government and non-government education provider community.
What support will be available to providers to assist in the implementation of the VSN within their environments?
Support will be provided for training of staff as well as for stakeholder communications and outreach activities. The Department will provide technical advice and a testing facility for vendors of student management/administration systems to enable them to ensure that their systems are VSR-aware.