Uses of ENROL
What is ENROL?
ENROL is a central electronic student enrolment register for all school students, that is updated and used by schools when students enrol, change schools or leave the school system. The collection of this enrolment information is authorised by section 77A of the Education Act 1989.
ENROL replaces a paper-based process of updating the Register of Admissions and Withdrawals book (E19/2C), the student’s Record of Schools Attended card (E19/22A), and manually requesting and posting the cards when students change schools. It also replaces the paper non-enrolment notification form for NETS with an online form.
ENROL is not a Student Management System (SMS).
Why did the Ministry introduce ENROL?
There were a number of problems with the paper-based enrolment process that impacted on schools:
- duplicate data collection occurred with the Enrolment Record (E19/22A), Register of Admissions and Withdrawals (E19/2C), the school's own enrolment record, and increasingly, in student management systems;
- increasing numbers of students were becoming non-enrolled and there were high compliance costs with the current process of requesting and transferring the enrolment record;
- forty percent of all the non-enrolments notified to the Ministry were found to be already enrolled in a school, or have legally left the school system; and
- there was an unacceptable length of time from the point of non-enrolment to resolution.
How does ENROL address these problems?
The use of a central electronic register:
- facilitates immediate access to the information schools need to enrol a student;
- provides the enrolment history of a student where contact with the previous school is necessary, e.g. to ensure appropriate placement in a class;
- establishes a consistent and accurate process for the enrolment and transition of all students;
- reduces the paperwork and monitoring effort for schools when students enrol or move from one school to another;
- enables the 20 day period between leaving a school and enrolling at another to be monitored automatically; and
- reduces the time taken to identify and respond to those students of compulsory school age who fail to re-enrol after leaving their previous school.
Who was involved in designing ENROL?
Focus groups were used from both the Ministry of Education and the school sector. The sector focus group included principals and senior staff from primary, intermediate and secondary schools from around the country. These people met several times to provide input into the issues facing schools, the requirements for the system, discuss the new processes and provide feedback on the design of a prototype system.
What information is held in ENROL?
The previous paper-based process provided the foundation for the information held in the system, and focuses on the information required to support the enrolment process. The information assists schools to verify the identity of the student and their student status (eg domestic or foreign); to identify the previous school and be advised of any circumstances which affect the placement of the student, eg year level or health issues. The system does not contain detailed academic information or emergency contact details. This is only held by the school where the student is enrolled.
How are personal information and privacy protected?
An audit trail exists to track every transaction in the system, including the identification of the user, date and activity.
Authorised users will have individual logons to the system which will be captured in the audit records of the system.
Authorised users will be advised of their responsibilities in respect of the information contained in this database; these responsibilities also apply in the current paper-based environment.
What other uses will ENROL have?
ENROL will provide statistical data for research and analysis of enrolment trends, and monitoring of enrolment policies.
Who uses ENROL?
All schools must use ENROL.
How does ENROL work?
Authorised staff will access ENROL via the internet and find existing student records or create them if the student is entering the New Zealand schooling system for the first time. Staff will add their school to the enrolment record of a student and update information as required eg if the student's name has changed or if they leave school.
If a student leaves the school ENROL will monitor their record and, if they do not re-enrol after 20 days, will send a non-enrolment notification form to the last school. At the same time ENROL will alert the Ministry of Education that the student is non-enrolled. If necessary schools can also manually submit a non-enrolment notification via ENROL.
ENROL will provide email notifications to schools where actions are required. For example, a student may be enrolling at another school without advising their last school of their intention. The new school can only fully complete the enrolment process when the last school has updated the system to say the student has left. When users access the system a list of outstanding tasks will be provided.
Who can access ENROL?
Only authorised users are able to access ENROL. Authorised users in schools are staff involved in the enrolment process. Principals are responsible for authorising access for their staff.
Ministry of Education staff will update student records in specific circumstances, such as when granting approval for home schooling, and District Health Board staff will have restricted access to update student records with the vision and hearing test results undertaken by clinicians.
All users must have completed training before access to ENROL is granted. To request training a new user form must be completed. The new user form can be found on the Access to ENROL page.
Can parents or students access ENROL?
Parents or students do not have direct access to ENROL. They will however have the right to request copies, or the correction, of information held in the system. This should be requested from the school your child is currently enrolled at.
How is the system protected from hackers?
User logons and passwords authorise use of the system, and it is important that users protect their passwords to ensure they are not available to unauthorised users. The system is held behind the Ministry of Education's firewall, which restricts access to authorised users. In addition the ENROL system runs in encrypted mode (SSL secure), so no data is visible as it travels the internet.
Who should I contact for help using ENROL?
For help using ENROL please contact the e-Admin Contact Centre:
Phone (04) 463 8383
Email e.admin@minedu.govt.nz