STANDARDS & COMPLIANCE

Administrative Requirements

General Principle

An accredited school must maintain administrative systems capable of producing, on demand, accurate and complete records of every student enrolled, every teacher employed, every examination conducted, and every fee received.

Administrative capacity is not a separate requirement from data governance. It is the human and procedural counterpart of the technical obligations set out in the Data and Technology section of this portal.

A school that lacks administrative capacity does not satisfy the framework, irrespective of the quality of its teaching. Without reliable records, WISE credentials cannot be issued with confidence, and audits cannot be conducted.

Student Record System

The school must maintain a student record for every student enrolled in an accredited class. The record must be held in the Institution Management Portal, and a corresponding copy must be retained locally on a non-corruptible medium.

Each student record must contain, at minimum, the following fields:

Personal:

Full legal name (as in official identity document);
Date of birth;
Gender;
Nationality;
Residential address;
Unique student identifier (assigned by WEQSC).

Parent / Guardian:

Name of parent or legal guardian;
Contact telephone number;
Contact email address, where available.

Enrolment:

Class and section;
Date of enrolment;
Programme (qualification level and stream, where applicable);
Enrolment status (active, transferred, withdrawn, graduated).

Academic:

Subject registrations for the academic session;
Internal Assessment marks, by subject and instrument;
WISE Examination results, by subject;
Final grades and grade point average.

Attendance:

Daily attendance record;
Aggregate attendance percentage, updated termly;
Attendance-related communications with parent or guardian.

Welfare:

Medical exemptions and special provisions in force;
Records of serious disciplinary matters, where they affect the student's enrolment status.

Recognition:

Bonus marks eligibility documentation.

A student record must be created within thirty days of enrolment. The record must be updated within thirty days of any change to any field.

Student records must be accurate. Where an error is discovered, the school must submit a correction request to WEQSC. The school may not directly alter any field in the Portal.

A student transferring out of the school is entitled, on request, to a certified transfer record. The school must issue the record within fourteen days of a written request by the parent or guardian.

Examination Records

The school must maintain, for every WISE examination conducted, a complete examination record comprising:

The date of the examination;
The subject and class;
The list of candidates who sat;
The invigilator's report;
The sealed question paper and the seal-opening record;
The attendance register;
The record of any incident reported.

Examination scripts collected from candidates must be returned to WEQSC in accordance with the procedure notified for each examination. The school may not retain copies of scripts beyond the period specified in the examination instructions.

Internal Assessment records — test papers, project submissions, practical record books — must be retained by the school for inspection at audit.

Where any incident occurs during an examination that may compromise its integrity — including but not limited to a late arrival of sealed papers, an unauthorised person in the examination hall, a disruption, or a suspected irregularity — the invigilator must record the incident in the invigilator's report, and the school must notify WEQSC within twenty-four hours.

Administrative Staffing

The school must employ, or have firm written commitments to employ, at least one full-time administrative officer whose designated responsibilities include:

Maintenance of the student record system in the Institution Management Portal;
Submission of data to WEQSC within the deadlines specified in the Data and Technology section;
Retention of records in accordance with the retention requirements;
Correspondence with WEQSC on routine administrative matters;
Support of the annual audit process.

The administrative officer must have completed the WEQSC Portal induction within thirty days of appointment, and must maintain current knowledge of the Portal's functionality.

The school must identify, in writing to WEQSC, a Principal Portal User who is responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of all Portal submissions. The Principal Portal User is the school's accountable person for administrative compliance.

Where the school has more than three hundred students enrolled in accredited classes, it must employ at least two full-time administrative officers with Portal responsibilities.

Communication Infrastructure

The school must maintain:

A functioning institutional email address monitored during business hours;
A telephone line that is answered during business hours or equipped with a voicemail facility that is monitored daily.

The school must notify WEQSC within seven days of any change to its institutional email address, telephone number, or designated Principal Portal User.

The school must monitor correspondence from WEQSC and respond within the period specified in the correspondence. Where no period is specified, the school must respond within fourteen days.

Where the school becomes aware that it may be unable to respond to a WEQSC communication within the specified period, it must notify WEQSC in writing before the deadline, giving reasons and proposing an alternative date.

A school that fails, without reasonable excuse, to respond to three or more WEQSC communications within a period of twelve months may be placed on Provisional Accreditation.

Communication with Parents

The school must communicate to parents, at the commencement of each academic session, the following information in writing:

The curriculum to be delivered, with a summary of subjects and streams;
The examination calendar, including all internal and WISE examination dates;
The fee structure applicable to the session, distinguishing WEQSC fees from school fees;
The attendance requirement;
The availability of scholarships and support programmes, together with eligibility criteria and application procedures;
The grievance procedure.

The school must hold at least two parent-teacher meetings per academic session for each class in the accredited levels.

The school must provide, at least once per term, a written progress report to the parent or guardian of each student, setting out Internal Assessment marks, attendance, and any matter requiring the parent's attention.

Communication under this section must be in a language the parent or guardian can reasonably be expected to understand.

Fees and Financial Records

The school must maintain financial records in accordance with the accounting standards applicable in its jurisdiction, and in a form capable of audit.

The school must maintain, for every fee received from a parent or guardian, a receipt showing the date, amount, payer, and purpose of the payment. Receipts must be issued within seven days of receipt of the payment.

The school's fee arrangements with WEQSC — comprising accreditation fees and annual fees payable by the school to WEQSC — are confidential to the school. The school is not required to disclose to any parent, student, or third party the amount of any such fee.

The confidentiality in the preceding paragraph does not affect:

The Student Examination Fee, which is separately published by WEQSC and which the school may disclose or itemise as it sees fit;
The school's obligation to pay WEQSC fees when due;
The school's obligation to maintain internal records sufficient to demonstrate to WEQSC at audit that its fees to WEQSC have been paid.

Grievance Procedure

The school must maintain a written grievance procedure, made available to parents and students, for the receipt and resolution of complaints relating to:

Teaching quality;
Assessment and marking;
Attendance recording;
Discipline;
Fees and receipts;
Any matter arising under the WEQSC framework that is within the school's control.

The grievance procedure must provide for:

Submission of a written grievance to a designated member of staff;
A written acknowledgment within seven days of receipt;
A substantive response within thirty days of receipt, or a written notice stating why the response will take longer and giving a new date;
An internal appeal to the senior officer where the complainant is dissatisfied with the initial response;
A record of every grievance received and its outcome.

A complainant who is dissatisfied with the outcome of the school's grievance procedure may escalate the matter to WEQSC under the Accountability section of this portal.

Administrative Data Security

Access to the Institution Management Portal must be controlled through individual credentials. Shared logins are prohibited.

Local copies of student records must be protected by password access or equivalent controls, and must not be stored on any device accessible to unauthorised persons.

The school must maintain a register of persons with access to student records, distinguishing between access through the Portal and access through local copies. The register must be available for inspection at audit.

Where an administrative officer ceases to hold a role with access to student records, the school must revoke that access within twenty-four hours and record the revocation.

Breach — Consequences

A breach of any provision of this page is subject to the audit regime and, where applicable, to the suspension and termination regime set out in the Accountability section of this portal.

A Critical Finding under this page is subject to the remediation timetable, and may constitute grounds for suspension where it is deliberate, repeated, or affecting a significant number of students.

Conclusion

The administrative requirements set out in this page are the operational foundation on which the compliance regime of WEQSC rests. All administrative procedures not expressly set out in this portal must follow the Secretariat's official bylaws.