Data Collections Compliance Certificate

The Compliance Certificate process requires approved authorities to answer 3 questions about policy requirements relating to section 77 of the Act and sections 42, 56(f) and 59 of the Regulations on behalf of the school(s) you operated during the 2023 school year. These requirements include:

• implementing the Australian Curriculum
• providing information about a school’s students – for example, any other information specified in the Data standards manual: Student background characteristics
• providing understandable student A to E reports to the parents or carers of each child.

For the 2024 Compliance Certificate and Compliance Certificate Verification Exercise processes (for the 2023 school year), the Department of Education (the department) has adopted a change from an approved authority level sampling to a school level sampling.

In addition, the 2024 Compliance Certificate will not require a response to a question on National Assessment Program (NAP) participation (which was Question 4 in the 2023 Compliance Certificate). This information is publicly available on the MySchool website.

The Compliance Certificate process is a risk-based annual assurance activity undertaken by the department.

The risk-based approach means that a sample of schools will be selected to complete the Compliance Certificate each year.

If your school(s) has been selected for the 2024 Compliance Certificate process, you will receive notification as an approved authority through your approved authority’s SchoolsHUB registered email address in August 2024.

The Compliance Certificate collection opens on SchoolsHUB at 9:00 am AEST on Monday 12 August 2024.

Selected approved authorities must submit the Compliance Certificate by 5:00 pm AEST on Friday 27 September 2024.

The 2024 Compliance Certificate relates to activity in the 2023 school year only.

Approved authorities of school(s) will be required to answer the following 3 questions for the 2023 school year:

1. For the previous school year, did your schools implement the Australian Curriculum (teach, assess and report on student achievement using the content and standards in the curriculum) or another curriculum recognised as comparable by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), and included in ACARA’s Recognition Register?
2. For the previous school year, did your schools collect and report information on the gender of the student, Indigenous status of the student, socioeconomic background (parental education and occupation) and language background of all students?
3. For the previous school year, did your schools provide parents and carers of students in years 1 to 10 with reports on student achievement for each subject using A to E or an equivalent scale?

The department will review the information provided on the Compliance Certificate and may contact approved authorities for further information or clarification.

If you are notified by the department, please ensure you advise your school(s) of their selection for the 2024 Compliance Certificate process.

The Compliance Certificate Verification Exercise confirms that the information provided through the Compliance Certificate process is accurate, complete, and reliable.

Each year, a sample of schools are selected to provide documentation to support the declarations made in their Compliance Certificate. If your school is selected to participate in the Compliance Certificate Verification Exercise, the approved authority representatives will receive an email notification in October 2024.

In addition, if there are ‘no’ responses to any of the questions on the Compliance Certificate, the department may request an explanation and further information from the approved authority.

All materials received from the approved authority and/or schools will be reviewed by the department to assess whether further information and/or investigation is required.