What the law says about school records

Recordkeeping laws

There are several laws that explain how public records must be managed. The laws tell schools:

• when records must be created
• how records must be looked after
• when records can be destroyed
• which records must be kept forever
• who can access records and when.

In 1971, the department issued its first Schedule of Records for Retentional and Disposal. Victoria’s first law that required schools to keep records, the Public Records Act, was then introduced in 1973. Before this, schools still made records, but there were no clear laws about keeping them.

Schools and public sector agencies must create and keep records to show how and why decisions were made. Recordkeeping rules have become stronger over time, especially to support child safety.

Important laws that cover school records include:

• Public Records Act 1973 (Vic) — main law
• Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005 (Vic)
• Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic)
• Health Records Act 2001 (Vic)
• Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic)
• other workplace and safety laws.

The department gives schools policy guidance on how they can follow these rules.

Permanent and temporary records

Permanent records

Permanent records are kept forever in the State Archive, which is managed by the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV). These records show how schools operated, made decisions, and impacted their communities. Examples of permanent school records include:

• student enrolment registers
• school council minutes.

PROV decides which records are kept permanently. They also decide whether records should be restricted from being accessed by the public for a set time. Records that contain personal or sensitive information are examples of what might be restricted from public access.

Visit Public Record Office Victoria for more about accessing permanent records.

Temporary records

Temporary records also contain important information, but they only need to be kept for a certain amounts of time. After that, they can be destroyed legally. Examples of temporary records include:

• teacher lesson plans — kept for 1 year
• student wellbeing files — kept for 75 years.

How records are classified

PROV decides:

• which records are permanent
• how long temporary records must be kept.

The rules around how long records must be kept are written in Retention and Disposal Authorities (RDAs). Schools must follow these rules under the Public Records Act 1973. RDAs are published on PROV’s website:

• Retention and Disposal Authority for School Records (PDF) — covers things like enrolments and lesson plans.
• Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of Common Administrative Functions — covers things like finance.
• Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of the Human Resources Management Function (PDF) — covers things like recruitment and employment history.
• Retention and Disposal Authority for Organisational Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Incidents and Allegations — covers things like policies and procedures, and reporting and investigations.

Where records are stored

School records can be held in three official places:

1. schools
2. the Department of Education
3. the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV).

Schools

Schools are responsible for the records they create and receive until they are:

• legally destroyed
• transferred to an approved, secure offsite records storage facility (temporary records)
• transferred to PROV (permanent records).

Records in schools are usually kept onsite as either electronic files in records management systems, or as hardcopy files. Some schools use offsite storage providers approved by PROV to store records.

Some schools may also hold records from other schools if they have merged or changed names.

Department of Education

Records from closed schools are transferred to the department’s records team.

The department is collecting long-term retention hardcopy records from all open government schools:

• Permanent records will be prepared for transfer to PROV.
• Temporary records will be kept until they can be legally destroyed — sometimes many decades later.

The department stores its records in a PROV-approved offsite records storage facility.

Public Record Office Victoria (PROV)

PROV manages Victoria’s State Archives. It holds valuable government dating back to 1836 at sites in North Melbourne and Ballarat. It also supports the Bendigo Regional Archive Centre and the Geelong Heritage Centre to store important records.

Some school records are kept in PROV-approved community sites called Places of Deposit (PODs), including mechanics’ institutes, museums, and historical societies located throughout the state.

For instructions on how to get records from PROV, visit: How to get records from PROV.

Unofficial locations

Occasionally some school records are found in places they should not be, such as:

• local historical societies that are not approved PODs
• local libraries
• private collections.

When this happens, the department works to bring the records back into official storage.