The New Zealand Ministry of Education is setting up an online management system that will track middle and secondary school students nationwide.
Once the Enrollment Management System is fully operating, school officials will be able to use Web-based forms to update students’ records as they enroll, transfer, or leave a school system. A central register, which officials from schools, the Ministry of Education, and district health boards will be able to access, will house the data. Some 765,000 students were enrolled in the country’s schools last July.
The system will monitor a student’s records once he or she leaves a school, and will automatically notify the ministry if the student does not re-enroll elsewhere within 20 days.
Six schools will take part in a pilot version, starting in September. According to the Ministry of Education’s Web site for the program, www.minedu.govt.nz/goto/ems, a national rollout of the system will begin in March 2006.
