ERO (the Education Review Office) is charged under law with conducting review of home educating families, when requested to do so by the Ministry of Education. Under current government policy, up to 35 reviews per year are funded, and these are only requested on a complaints basis.
This means that if someone (it could be anonymous) complains to the MoE that your child is not being suitably educated, then they may request an ERO review. For a while that was the automatic result, but now the MoE first investigates the complaint, by contacting the family concerned, letting them know of the complaint, and giving them the opportunity to respond. If the response is such that the MoE decides that there is no real reason to be concerned, they don't request an ERO review. Otherwise, they will. However, if this is a second complaint, and the first one did not result in and ERO review, the Ministry is inclined to go straight to ERO the second time.
The only other time that an ERO review is called for is if a declined exemption application is appealed, but that is quite a different process, not involving visiting the family, which I will address in another post.
I will also post separately about responding to complaints and preparing for reviews - here, a brief look at the history and statistics of ERO reviews for home educators.
This means that if someone (it could be anonymous) complains to the MoE that your child is not being suitably educated, then they may request an ERO review. For a while that was the automatic result, but now the MoE first investigates the complaint, by contacting the family concerned, letting them know of the complaint, and giving them the opportunity to respond. If the response is such that the MoE decides that there is no real reason to be concerned, they don't request an ERO review. Otherwise, they will. However, if this is a second complaint, and the first one did not result in and ERO review, the Ministry is inclined to go straight to ERO the second time.
The only other time that an ERO review is called for is if a declined exemption application is appealed, but that is quite a different process, not involving visiting the family, which I will address in another post.
I will also post separately about responding to complaints and preparing for reviews - here, a brief look at the history and statistics of ERO reviews for home educators.
History & Stats
In 1989, under Lange's Labour Government, the Tomorrow's Schools education reform happened, and from it the 1989 Education Act was born. There was also a report known as the Picot Report (proper name "Administering for Excellence") which contained recommendations for what should be carried out. For our purposes here, the results were:
- 1989 introduction of the law requiring families who wished to home educate to apply for a long term exemption from enrolment from the Secretary of Education (Prior to this, parents approached their local school principal and asked for an exemption. The MoE had no idea of how many children were being home educated)
- Routine reviews of home educators by ERO began
- The supervision allowance was introduced
In 1994, National's then Minister of Education, Lockwood Smith, stopped routine reviews of home educators. Quoting from Craig Smith's "A Brief History of Home Education in NZ":
"In July 1994 Lockwood Smith stopped the regular reviews of HEs by the ERO. He stated that he could not justify the expense of Review Officers travelling all over the country to review one or two children, virtually all of whom were doing excellently. All ERO annual reports have stated that HEs are a very low-risk group. Lockwood may have had another motive for dropping the reviews: the regular reviews were actually being conducted outside the parametres of the Education Act, which only provided for two occasions when reviews could take place on HEs: when a problem with a specific HE family came to the MoE’s attention; and when the MoE turned down a parent’s application for exemption, and the parent requested a review."
"In July 1994 Lockwood Smith stopped the regular reviews of HEs by the ERO. He stated that he could not justify the expense of Review Officers travelling all over the country to review one or two children, virtually all of whom were doing excellently. All ERO annual reports have stated that HEs are a very low-risk group. Lockwood may have had another motive for dropping the reviews: the regular reviews were actually being conducted outside the parametres of the Education Act, which only provided for two occasions when reviews could take place on HEs: when a problem with a specific HE family came to the MoE’s attention; and when the MoE turned down a parent’s application for exemption, and the parent requested a review."
In 1996, the MoE asked home educators to write a self-evaluation report in lieu of reviews. Some did, some refused. There was a huge national mobilisation of home educators against this idea (one of the few times the majority have managed to agree enough to move together), and it was short-lived.
In 1997, the National goverment was in coalition with NZ First (after the first ever MMP election). NZ First wanted greater accountability for home educators, and pushed for an amendment to the Education Act which made routine review of home educators legal, and then reintroduced routine reviews.
In 2009, under the National government (no longer in coalition with NZF), routine reviews of home educators were again scrapped. Craig and Barbara Smith wrote:
Echoing then Minister of Education Dr Lockwood Smith in 1994, that he could not justify the expense of regular reviews on such a low-risk group as home educators, Chief Review Officer Graham Stoop wrote in February this year that reviews of home educators are not efficient or effective. Posted on the ERO website is the following: “From 1 July 2009 ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances.”
This is in line with the present central government’s drive to cut bureaucratic costs. Minister in charge of the ERO, Anne Tolley, said in February: “I have asked ERO to identify schools that are performing consistently well and, accordingly, from March 1, these schools will be exempt from the current three-yearly ERO reviews and will instead be reviewed every four to five years.”
In December 2008, the Finance Minister advised Cabinet to do a line-byline review of expenditure. Home Education reviews were found to account for $283,000 out of a total budget of $28,675,000 or 0.987% (less than 1%). Graham Stoop wrote: “This programme is considered to be low risk to the education priorities of the Government. In 2007/08 ERO completed 644 homeschooling reviews from a total of 6,169 homeschooled students [at an average cost of $439.44 per review]. ERO could not provide assurance that the terms of exemption were being met in only 35 of the 644 reviews [a 5.4% “failure” rate]. This has been the pattern over many years.”
Echoing then Minister of Education Dr Lockwood Smith in 1994, that he could not justify the expense of regular reviews on such a low-risk group as home educators, Chief Review Officer Graham Stoop wrote in February this year that reviews of home educators are not efficient or effective. Posted on the ERO website is the following: “From 1 July 2009 ERO will carry out reviews only when requested by the Secretary for Education, or in other particular circumstances.”
This is in line with the present central government’s drive to cut bureaucratic costs. Minister in charge of the ERO, Anne Tolley, said in February: “I have asked ERO to identify schools that are performing consistently well and, accordingly, from March 1, these schools will be exempt from the current three-yearly ERO reviews and will instead be reviewed every four to five years.”
In December 2008, the Finance Minister advised Cabinet to do a line-byline review of expenditure. Home Education reviews were found to account for $283,000 out of a total budget of $28,675,000 or 0.987% (less than 1%). Graham Stoop wrote: “This programme is considered to be low risk to the education priorities of the Government. In 2007/08 ERO completed 644 homeschooling reviews from a total of 6,169 homeschooled students [at an average cost of $439.44 per review]. ERO could not provide assurance that the terms of exemption were being met in only 35 of the 644 reviews [a 5.4% “failure” rate]. This has been the pattern over many years.”
Since that time, funding for up to 35 reviews per year has remained in place. The number of actual reviews conducted per year has varied. ERO's year runs 1st July-30th June, and the stats kept are on that basis. Number of reviews per year are shown in the table below. The funding is for the review of individual students, so a family with, say, 3 exempt students, if reviewed, would account for funding and statistics reflecting this number. Therefore, 4 reviews does not necessarily mean 4 families were reviewed. In the 2016/2017 year, 9 students were reviewed from 5 families.
Note that in early 2014, the National Council of Home Educators (NCHENZ) took up with the MoE the issue of automatically referring to ERO any complaint recieved, when the complaint may be completely baseless. As a result, they instituted the current practice of giving families an opportunity to address the complaint, and not automatically referring on. You can see this reflected in the drop in numbers of reviews subsequently.
Year |
Number of reviews conducted |
2009/2010 |
5 |
2010/2011 |
10 |
2011/2012 |
26 |
2012/2013 |
16 |
2013/2014 |
21 |
2014/2015 |
4 |
2015/2016 |
4 |
2016/2017 |
9 |
Keep in mind that there are currently around 5,800 exempt students in NZ. On the most recent statistic, that means the chances of your child being reviewed in any given year are 9:5800, or about 0.1%, and half that if you use the previous 2 year's stats. Of course, if you happen to know you have family or "friends" who are opposed to homeschooling and are the sort to complain about you to the MoE, your odds would go up.
So, while it is valuable to know you have sufficient material to put together what you need if you do have an ERO review one day, this should not be the primary focus of your home education program, and should not be burdensome.
Families are often afraid of the idea of an ERO review, and of course, if it happens, preparing for one does inevitably add stress. However, overall, most families report that it turned out to be a mostly positive experience, and it can be quite affirming to have a report that confirms your children "are being taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school."
One more thing to note: ERO do NOT decide whether an exemption is to be revoked or not. They simply review and write a report which they send to the MoE. It is up to the MoE to then make decisions. If the review states the children ARE being taught as regularly and well, then the exemption continues with no further action. If it states that they are NOT, then the Ministry can choose either to revoke the exemptions, or to allow the family a period of time in which to address the areas of concern, after which another review may be conducted.
I will be posting more articles about these things, but for now, if you would like to know your rights and how to prepare for an ERO review, see the excellent information on the NCHENZ website HERE.
So, while it is valuable to know you have sufficient material to put together what you need if you do have an ERO review one day, this should not be the primary focus of your home education program, and should not be burdensome.
Families are often afraid of the idea of an ERO review, and of course, if it happens, preparing for one does inevitably add stress. However, overall, most families report that it turned out to be a mostly positive experience, and it can be quite affirming to have a report that confirms your children "are being taught at least as regularly and well as in a registered school."
One more thing to note: ERO do NOT decide whether an exemption is to be revoked or not. They simply review and write a report which they send to the MoE. It is up to the MoE to then make decisions. If the review states the children ARE being taught as regularly and well, then the exemption continues with no further action. If it states that they are NOT, then the Ministry can choose either to revoke the exemptions, or to allow the family a period of time in which to address the areas of concern, after which another review may be conducted.
I will be posting more articles about these things, but for now, if you would like to know your rights and how to prepare for an ERO review, see the excellent information on the NCHENZ website HERE.
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