The Ministry began its data matching programme with the Department of Internal Affairs in December 2004. The first programme involved the matching of NZ birth information (years 1970 - 1984) with the National Student Index (NSI).
Where an exact match was made with a name (any name on the NSI record), date of birth and gender, the NSI record was automatically updated to show it was matched with the NZ Birth Register.
The locking down of a NSI record prevents any unneccessary changes by another TEO that could adversely affect your SDR. With regard to name changes, as long as the name you hold for the student sits either in the main name field or alternative name field of their NSI record, your SDR will not fail.
The following assumptions can be made about these records:
- The name/date of birth verification flag is now verified by the Ministry of Education on sight of the NZ Birth Register.
- The residential status is NZ Citizen, verified by the Ministry of Education on sight of the NZ Birth Register.
- The two verification flags (listed above) are now locked, which means that no changes can be made to the name sitting in the main name field, the date of birth or the residential status.
- Any other names, whether verified or not, can be added to the alternative name field either via the website, through an interface, or in a batch file. Please see Alternative names for information on adding an alternative name.
- The NZQA paid flag can still be updated by NZQA.
It may be useful for you to acknowledge somewhere in the student's enrolment details in your Student Management System that their NSN has been matched with the NZ Birth Register and is now locked. Therefore if the student came to you with another name (e.g. a married name ) you would know to add it to the alternative name field rather than attempting to overwrite the main name.
If you wish to go to another module please use the appropriate tab on the menu bar above.
If you wish to go to another part of the "The National Student Index (NSI)" module, please select the part from the left hand menu.