ERO reviews all school hostels to evaluate if students accommodated in the hostel are living in a safe emotional and physical environment that supports learning.
Hostel reviews are undertaken as part of the regular cycle of ERO reviews of applicable schools. Where students enrolled in a school are living in a hostel the school board of trustees or school governors have a responsibility for providing a safe emotional and physical environment for these students.
The Education Act 1989, Part XXVIII, Sections 328E to 328H, sets out the key provisions about the review of hostels by ERO review officers.
The Education (Hostels) Regulations 2005 were gazetted in December 2005 making it mandatory for school hostels to be licensed. The regulations came into force on 1 March 2006.
All hostels must be licensed by the Ministry of Education (the Hostel Licensing Authority) by 1 March 2007 and comply with the minimum standards specified in the Regulations.
As part of an Education Review ERO will evaluate and report on the extent to which the hostel provides students enrolled at the school with a safe emotional and physical environment that supports their learning. ERO will seek evidence for this in the usual way through discussions, reading documentation and observation. All hostel reviews include an assessment of the extent to which the hostel regulations are being met.
To do this ERO provides the hostel owner with ERO’s Hostel Assurance Statement (HAS) (PDF 339 kB). ERO expects the hostel owner and the hostel manager to use this document and the attached self-audit checklists to attest that they have taken all reasonable steps to meet the requirements of the hostel regulations.
ERO uses the self-audit checklists, completed by the school board or governors, as a basis for scoping the hostel review and follows up those responses that have been recorded as “no” or “unsure.”
ERO includes the report on the hostel review in your school Education Review report, using the following headings:
Under the Compliance heading, if, at the time of the ERO review, your hostel has not been licensed by Ministry of Education, ERO will report this.
If, at the time of the ERO review, your hostel has been licensed by Ministry of Education, ERO will report on the extent to which licensing requirements are being met.
The report on the school hostel is part of the ERO report on the school as a whole. The board of trustees or school governors need to arrange for hostel personnel to consider the unconfirmed report of the hostel and provide their comment as part of the confirmation process between the school and ERO.
Included with this information sheet for schools should be: