What is the SDR?

The SDR is an electronic database of learner enrolment and completion information required by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC).

The data is used for:

• monitoring performance against your Investment Plan 
• funding and fund recovery 
• publishing performance information
• statistical reporting.

Note: Services for Tertiary Education Organisations (STEO) will be replaced by DXP Ngā Kete in early 2025. For more information go to Data System Refresh (DSR) programme.

Who needs to complete an SDR?

All tertiary education organisations (TEOs) need to complete an SDR three times a year if they:

• receive Delivery at Levels 1–10 on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework, including Youth Guarantee (YG), and/or
• have students with student loans or allowances.

Completing an SDR is a condition of funding, and it’s important that you do so accurately and on time. Late or incomplete submissions can result in delays to your scheduled payments. (See Single Data Return submission dates.)

Accessing the SDR

You can access the SDR through the TEC Data Exchange Platform (DXP).

You are able to log in through MoE’s Education Sector Logon (ESL) service.

To find out how to set up access, please contact MoE on 0800 422 599 or service.desk@education.govt.nz. 

Information to submit

You’ll find comprehensive guidance in the:

• 2023 SDR Manual
• step-by-step STEO user guide.

Here is some important information to include:

Details about each of your enrolled students

If you receive Delivery at Levels 1–10 on the New Zealand Qualifications and Credentials Framework or YG funding, you need to provide information about each of your enrolled students, regardless of the level of study or the type of funding. For more details, see the introduction to the 2023 SDR Manual

Workforce questionnaire (WFQ) – before you submit your December SDR

Before you submit your December SDR, upload your WFQ to the TEC DXP. We won’t accept your December SDR without a processed WFQ.

Up-to-date delivery site information

Please check that your delivery site information in the STEO application is up to date. (For information on how to complete your SDR, including delivery sites, see the STEO user guide.) We rely on this information to analyse regional funding and provision. If you need to submit a delivery site update request, please do so early so we can process it in time for your final SDR submission.

Forecasts

If you are delivering qualifications eligible for TEC funding at Level 3 and above, with a source of funding code of 01, 29, 11 or 37, you need to provide an equivalent full-time student (EFTS) forecast with each round. The forecast should not include TEC-funded provision for Levels 1 and 2 or Youth Guarantee.

Correct funding codes

Before submitting your SDR, please check that you have used the correct funding codes. (These are in the 2023 SDR Manual). If you use the wrong codes, you may need to resubmit your SDR. If you have any questions about the codes, please refer to the SDR Manual or contact us at 0800 601 301 or customerservice@tec.govt.nz.

New course/qualification requests

You can change the credits, fees, levels or classifications of your courses and qualifications at any time. You don’t need to wait until just before your SDR is due. But it’s important to submit the change request through the STEO application before you submit a trial SDR.

If you want to make multiple changes to courses (as a result of changing the disaggregation approach for a qualification), you need to do this before the courses start each year. We don’t approve in-year change requests resulting from substantial disaggregation for the current year.

Completing a trial SDR

So you have time to correct any errors in your data, it’s important to complete a trial SDR before submitting your final SDR. For help completing a SDR, please refer to the STEO user guide.

Importance of data accuracy and timeliness

We use data from every SDR to plan our ongoing investment in tertiary education. If you submit your data late or with errors, or resubmit it with changes, this can have flow-on effects for us and for other TEOs.

To manage this, we don’t accept resubmissions of August or December SDRs unless we have approved the resubmission (which we will do only in exceptional circumstances).

We will accept resubmissions of the April SDR during a set period (which we will let you know about each year) to allow you to review your educational performance indicator (EPI) data. Outside this set period, we will only accept resubmissions of the April SDR in exceptional circumstances. We may ask you to consider making any corrections in later SDR submissions in the next SDR round.

We will treat all resubmissions outside published timeframes as late.

What are "exceptional circumstances"?

"Exceptional circumstances" are those that are genuinely unforeseeable and that you could not have proactively managed.

We are unlikely to consider the following circumstances to be exceptional:

• Data issues identified during or after the sale and purchase of a TEO. If you are purchasing a TEO, you need to be confident that its historical SDR data is accurate.
• Student Management System (SMS) software errors. Submit trial SDRs early to identify and address any issues well in advance of the final submission deadline.
• A change of SMS, resulting in errors. If you are changing your SMS, you need to be confident you can do this without risking errors.
• Errors made by a staff member that were only identified at a later stage. You are responsible for ensuring that your staff submit accurate data. 
• Not checking your organisation’s EPI data from the April SDR in time. You are responsible for reading and responding to our announcements about when data is available for you to review.

Late or inaccurate data

If you don’t provide a timely and accurate SDR, your current or future funding may be affected.

If you continue to submit inaccurate, incomplete or late data, we may introduce an extra monitoring process. For example, you could be asked to use an external auditor to confirm that your data is valid and accurate before you submit each SDR.

Our Stop Gate process

Our Stop Gate helps us manage late submissions and resubmissions of a full set of files. This means you need to submit a full set of SDR files by the due date for each round.

We will decide whether or not to approve a submission outside of the SDR round on a case-by-case basis. You can also resubmit your data if we find an error after submission, with our permission.

The process is as follows:

• Contact us on 0800 601 301 or customerservice@tec.govt.nz as soon as possible.
• We will then send you an SDR late/resubmission request (Stop Gate request) form to complete and submit.
• Once your SDR submission has the status of “Processed” (with zero errors) please send the completed form to customerservice@tec.govt.nz with the subject line [EDUMIS #] – SDR Stop Gate Request.
• Your request will be forwarded to the Customer Contact Group Manager to consider for approval.
• If we approve your request, we will advise you of the due date and lift the Stop Gate, allowing you to submit your processed (with zero errors) SDR.
• If we decline your request, we will advise you of the reason for that decision.

This does not affect the SDR validation, processing and submission process. You can still submit course register, course and qualification completion files at any time, and we encourage you to do so, particularly after the December round so we can confirm your EPIs as early as possible. 

Notes:

This does not affect the SDR validation, processing and submission process. You can still submit course register, course and qualification completion files at any time, and we encourage you to do so, particularly after the December round so we can confirm your EPIs as early as possible. 

Any amendment to a previously submitted SDR may have an impact on future funding and performance monitoring.

If the data from an SDR has been published in a report (such as statistical reporting), the published data can no longer be altered.

Resources to help you submit your SDR

• For help with the submissions process, see the STEO user guide.
• For a helpful guide to SDR, see the 2023 SDR Manual.
• For general assistance, guidance with validation errors and help with course, qualification and delivery site approvals, contact us on 0800 601 301 or customerservice@tec.govt.nz with the subject [EDUMIS #] Dec SDR enquiry.
• For help with your Education Sector Login (ESL), contact the Education Service Desk on 0800 422 599 or desk@education.govt.nz.