The Public Records Office Victoria (PROV) and the Department of Education and Training (DET) have approved a new Retention and Disposal Authority (RDA) for records of primary and secondary schools.
Announced by PROV, the RDA PROS 22/06 Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of Schools is divided into seven functions, six cover records created within schools currently, while the seventh covers historical records no longer created but which still exist in storage in schools across the State.
PROV said the new RDA replaced PROS 01/01 RDA for School Records which had been in use since 2001.
“The new RDA was developed over several years and was informed by extensive stakeholder consultation,” PROV said.
“This process has produced a comprehensive RDA that covers contemporary school functions and strikes a balance between preserving a concise record of each of the 1500+ Government schools as State Archives, meeting the business needs of schools, and personal needs of students, to reach a sustainable preservation outcome for the State and the community,” it said.
“Unlike PROS 01/01, the new RDA follows a ‘rolled-up’ structure, where each function contains only a small number of classes with short, medium, long term, and permanent retention periods.”
PROV said this would make the RDA simpler for school staff to implement, as there were fewer classes to apply and consistent retention periods across functions.
It said that while the age and structure of the previous RDA made it a good candidate for review and replacement, it was the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse’s final report findings around recordkeeping that truly advanced the RDA’s development.
“In response to these findings, records created by schools were reappraised, particularly those relating to the health and welfare of individual students,” PROV said.
“Both DET and PROV recognise that people may rely on gaining access to these records long after they have left the State school system, so a consistent 75-year retention period has been applied to records across several functions in the RDA to ensure that people can rely on these records being available throughout the majority of their life.”
It said DET would communicate directly with schools about the requirements of the new RDA, and would provide recordkeeping guidance as required to all Government schools.
The new RDA PROS 22/06 Retention and Disposal Authority for Records of Schools can be accessed at this PS News link.
