Providers and partners

Code resources for school signatories

To support signatory schools, we have created the following resources:

Guidelines for Code Signatory schools

We have adapted the previous guidelines on international students to help you understand how to apply the Code into practice in your school. This includes minor updates to the previous guidance documents.

The guidelines set out NZQA’s expectations for interpreting and applying the new Code.

We recommend reading the guidelines, outcome by outcome, using the tool on the right of the document to navigate between the sections.

If you are reviewing your practice, we recommend reading the guidelines, alongside the Code and the self-review toolkit. You can find both resources on this page.

Download the Guidelines for Code Signatory Schools (PDF, 1.1MB).

Self-review toolkit

We have developed this optional toolkit to support school signatories' self-review of current practices against the requirements of the Code.

This toolkit contains:

Download the full self-review toolkit for schools in a zipped folder. (ZIP, 15MB)

Code-to-code comparison tool

We created this tool to help you match the clauses of the previous international Code (2016) to the clauses in the Code (2021).

Download the code-to-code comparison tool for international school learners (PDF, 183KB)

Education agents

Education agents can play a key role in recruitment and support of international learners at your school, as they are often the first point of contact with international school learners and families and can greatly influence their enrolment decisions.

Under the Code, signatory schools are responsible to manage and monitor the performance of their education agents.

We have advice on the minimum requirements for Code signatory schools when managing and monitoring their education agents. We also have recommended practices for schools so they can meet or exceed the Code outcome.

Learn more about the requirements and recommendations for Code signatory schools

Emergency procedures - death of a learner

In the event of a critical incident or unexpected situation involving the death of an learner, providers need to have plans in place for dealing with the situation.

Critical incident - death of a learner contact list (PDF, 145KB)

Critical incident response plan - death of a learner (DOCX, 56KB)

Critical incident response plan diagram - death of a learner (PDF, 138KB)

Insurance

International school learners and their education providers may have obligations regarding insurance.

Find guidance on the insurance obligations of international school learners and schools

International school learner profile

When enrolling and supporting international school learners, your school must obtain some essential learner information to comply with the Code (Clause 72) and ensure that your international learners will be well informed, safe and properly cared for. This profile template contains examples of some of the information that you may like to gather from your learners. It is important that you are clear with your learners and (where applicable) their parents and/or legal guardians, about why you are collecting this information and how it will be used, stored and disposed of when it is no longer necessary.

See an example form for an international learner profile (DOCX, 33KB)

Safety checks and appropriate checks

The Code requires signatory schools to ensure that any accommodation they arrange is safe, is in acceptable condition and meets all regulatory and legislative requirements (Clause 76 (3)(a)). The Code also requires signatory school ensure that a safety check has been completed and up-to-date for all residential caregivers of international school learners under the age of 18 (Clause 76 (1)(b)). Use the links below to see examples of forms which can be used as part of a safety check and appropriate check process for accommodation and residential caregivers.

See an example form for an application to be a residential caregiver (DOCX, 32KB)

See an example of interview questions for assessing accommodation for international learners (DOCX, 27KB)

See an example of an accommodation visit checklist for homestay accommodation (DOCX, 26KB)

See examples of good practice for monitoring code-complaint accommodation for international school learners under 10 years (DOCX, 24KB)

International students under 10

The pastoral care requirements for international students in schools are set out in the Code. The Code requires each signatory to ensure that its international school students under 10 years live with a parent or legal guardian, unless they are accommodated in a school hostel. To ensure the safety and wellbeing of students, we encourage signatories to ensure that international students under 10 years old do not to come to New Zealand without their parent or legal guardian living in New Zealand even if the student stays in a school hostel.

Further information

Email the Code team if you have any questions or concerns

We release Code News regularly. It is tailored to your sector.

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