Email this page
Send this page to a friend.
This page is printer friendly.
Ministry of Education/MSD (StudyLink) Results of Study Programme
Annual Report
Purpose: To determine eligibility for student loans and/or allowance by verifying students' study results.
Year commenced: 2006 (allowances) 2010 (loans)
Features: Data transferred daily by online transfers.
MSD StudyLink disclosure to MoE: StudyLink provides MoE with the student's name(s) (in abbreviated form), date of birth, IRD number, study start and end dates, known education provider(s) used by this student and student ID number.
MoE disclosure to MSD StudyLink: MoE returns to StudyLink information showing all providers and courses used by the student, course dates, course equivalent full-time student rating and course completion code.
2010/11 activity:
Allowance applications
| Matching requests | 82,222 |
| Individual applications involved in matching | 62,248 |
| Notices of adverse action sent out | 5,120 |
| Successful challenges | 1,892 |
Matching requests for allowance applications are repeated if necessary.
Loan applications
| Records sent for matching | 13,291 |
| Applicants sent notices of adverse action | 447 |
| Successful challenges | 137 |
Commentary: New eligibility criteria for student loans took effect during the year.
Almost all challenges are resolved by contacting the applicant for clarification.
Individuals may make more than one application for loans and/or allowances in a year. Notices of adverse action are sent when Studylink cannot satisfactorily match the information supplied or when the record indicated eligibility criteria have not been met. More than one adverse action letter may be sent for an application (for example a notification letter and subsequently a letter declining their application). The application may be reinstated if the student provides additional information about their study history, or successfully applies for an exemption. This is recorded as a successful challenge.
Compliance: Compliant.
Technical information
| Information matching provisions | Education Act 1989, s.307D |
| Year authorised/commenced | 2006/2006 |
| Programme type | Confirming eligibility |
| Unique identifiers | Student ID number Tax File number Student ID |
| On-line transfers | Yes |
System description
The participants know this process as the Results of Study (RoS). Instead of seeking the information directly from the tertiary education institutions (TEIs) this programme receives the data from the Ministry of Education (MoE). TEIs are required to send students' results of study information to the MoE as part of the ‘course completion' component of their electronic single data returns (eSDRs). By accessing the data from MoE, MSD StudyLink gains the efficiency of dealing with a single agency.
StudyLink loads a daily file of requests for RoS records to the Verification of Study[1] secure website. The file is downloaded by MoE and matched against the SDRs submitted by institutions. Response files for each request are electronically returned to StudyLink using the same secure website.
The programme has been running since October 2006, and has approval for online transfer of data until March 2010, when the approval will be reviewed.
Historical activity
| 2006/07[2] | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | |
| Individual applications involved | 27,771 | 36,095 | 43,963 | 55,857 |
| Total RoS requests made | 49,602 | 51,956 | 60,164 | 78,425 |
| Notices of adverse action (s.103) | 1,616 | 2,934 | 3,757 | 4,596 |
| Percentage of applicants issued a s.103 notice | 6% | 8% | 9% | 6% |
| Successful challenges | 284 | 910 | 1163 | 1,439 |
[1] See the Educational Institutions/MSD Loans and Allowances Programme.
[2] The match commenced operation from 5 October 2006, so the figures are not for a full financial year.