What does the audit cycle mean?
This section answers these questions:
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The purpose of the audit cycle is to inform students about the relative strengths of providers. The audit cycle is set through a recommendation group comprising auditors, managers and other staff within the Quality Assurance Division of NZQA. The auditor who carried out the audit is not involved in this decision.
The criteria for audit cycles are:
Three-year cycle
- Previous audit cycle outcome two years or more
- Few non-compliances, none serious or systemic, identified at this audit
- Any requirements not met at audit have since been fully rectified
- All goals and objectives are met or exceeded
- Evidence of highly effective teaching and learning is readily available
- Robust self-review processes, independent of NZQA's external audit, are implemented and result in improved educational outcomes
- Evidence of effective relationships with and support from external stakeholders
- No formal risk concerns from government agencies and no serious upheld complaints from learners
- Evidence of organisational stability for more than two years.
Two-year cycle
- Previous audit cycle outcome one year or more
- Few non-compliances identified at this audit
- Any requirements not met at audit have since been addressed by an approved action plan
- No recurrence of any serious non-compliance identified at previous audit
- Most goals and objectives are met
- Evidence of effective teaching and learning is readily available
- Self-review processes are fully implemented
- Evidence of effective relationships with external stakeholders
- No formal risk concerns from government agencies and no serious upheld complaints from learners
- Evidence of organisational stability for at least two years.
One-year cycle
Any audit outcome that fails to meet all the two- or three-year criteria, but does not trigger any of the less-than-one-year criteria.
Less than one-year cycle
Introductory audit
Any new provider after initial registration is confirmed
Or
Corrective audit
- Legislative action has been taken (under s.236AA, s.258A or s.259A of the Education Act, 1989) since the previous audit
- Failure to rectify serious non-compliances identified at the previous audit
- Systemic non-compliances in the quality management of the organisation
- Recurrent failure to meet educational goals and objectives
- Some legislative or NZQA requirements at serious risk of not being met, as indicated by the final audit report
- Little evidence to demonstrate full implementation of new systems following approved significant change application.
Page updated: 07 August 2007