Victorian Student Number

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VSN Overview

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) is introducing a unique student identifier known as the Victorian Student Number (VSN). A new central system, the Victorian Student Register (VSR), maintains student identifying details, associated VSNs, and records of enrolments and exits from education providers.

Introduction and use of the VSN delivers improved information management with respect to participation in learning activities within Victoria. The VSN provides the capacity to gather:

  • Accurate knowledge of student movement and retention rates
  • Patterns of student premature departure.

This information will play an important role in planning future investment in education and training.

The VSN has the potential to provide accurate information on a student’s movement through the educational system, for example as they move from school to school or when they leave school and resume their education in the post compulsory years.

This will provide more accurate, longer term, and individualised destination data, allowing the education system to provide timely intervention and support to students.

The VSN covers students from Prep to the age of 24. 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, secondary and special schools, while the VET sector includes TAFE Institutes, adult community and further education (ACFE) centres and private registered training organisations (RTOs). The VSN will not be required to enrol at Victorian universities.

The Victorian Student Register will be managed and operated by a Victorian Government agency, the VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority)

Under the associated legislation (Education and Training Reform Act 2006), education providers are required to notify the Victorian Student Register of all student movements and changes to student identifying details. To achieve this, the VSR system provides an automated interface that enables student administration systems to automatically send and receive data from the VSR. For providers that do not use a student administration system that integrates with the VSR, there are options to enter data manually or send through a file containing the relevant data.

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Protecting student privacy

Strict privacy protocols are applied to the collection of data used to generate a VSN. All Victorian Student Numbers and associated information held within the VSR is subject to strict protocols covering access to and use of information.

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, and during the drafting of the legislation. 

Access to the data in the VSN system is strictly limited, and the database itself is maintained in a fully secure environment. Commonwealth and State Privacy Principles have been used to guide the design of the VSN system.

The information will be used only for educational purposes and the ways in which data can be used is prescribed by legislation. The VSN is restricted to use in the Victorian education and training system sector only, and legislation prohibits its use, as an identifier, outside the sector. The legislation also includes criminal offences for use of the data for other than the prescribed purpose

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Privacy guidelines for schools

In general, the legislation prescribes the purposes for which the VSN may be used, and places some restrictions on access to and disclosure of VSNs and related student information (e.g. student name, date of birth).

In general, disclosure of a student’s name and the associated VSN should be restricted to that student and that student’s parents or guardians, within the boundaries of normal student information disclosure. For example, if there is a court order in place that disallows one or more parents, or other interested parties, access to a student’s records, then similar restrictions must be applied to the student’s VSN.

Disclosure of a student’s name and associated VSN to parties other than the student or parent should be avoided. For example, including the VSN on student identity cards is not permitted. Similarly, if lists of students, including class rolls, are produced for any purpose other than verifying VSN data with the VSR team, then the students’ VSNs should not be included.