The Pastoral Care Code

The Pastoral Care Code outlines our role in making sure students are well and safe. Learn about our improvement projects, provide feedback, or make a complaint.

Pastoral Care Code

The Pastoral Care Code (the Code) highlights the minimum standards of care both domestic and international students should expect while studying at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. It requires the University to help our students be:

safe, physically, and mentally
respected and accepted for who they are
supported in their learning and wellbeing
connected with their social and cultural networks
able to have their say in decisions about service.

The Code holds the University accountable to students, whānau, and the wider community.

The University is working closely with a wide range of student representation groups and leaders on key wellbeing improvement projects to ensure student voice is embedded and partnership is upheld. In line with the Code's guidelines, these key projects aim to further support students' wellbeing, development and educational achievement, while engaging and empowering our students to manage their own wellbeing.

NZQA—the New Zealand Qualifications Authority—administers the Pastoral Care Code. More information and the Code document in English and Te Reo Māori can be found on NZQA's webpage about the Tertiary and International Learners Code of Practice.

Student Wellbeing

It is our mission to make sure that students feel well-supported, strongly connected to their social and cultural networks, and engaged in activities that complement their studies and beyond.

We are developing a University-wide Student Wellbeing Outcomes Framework to further ensure students' wellbeing and safety needs are being responded to—and met—effectively.

Find out more

Student Engagement

The Student Engagement Framework has been developed to provide foundational basis for genuine partnership and engagement between the University and students.

The Framework establishes the vision, values and objectives of student engagement within the University. The vision of the framework is to create a culture of collaboration—based on genuine respect, transparency, and inclusion—to understand and respond to diverse learner voices and wellbeing and safety needs in a way that upholds their mana and autonomy and aligns with our pastoral care responsibilities.

Find out more

Complaints processes

Make a formal complaint

You may want to make a complaint if you have attempted to resolve an issue directly but are not satisfied with the outcome, or if you feel that the issue needs to be dealt with in a more formal manner. You can make a complaint through via a secure online form or by emailing complaints@vuw.ac.nz.

For more information on making a complaint, raising a concern or conflict resolution, visit our Complaints and conflict resolution site.

Make a complaint online

External complaints

We ask that you raise any concerns or make a formal complaint to the University before engaging with external complaints processes.

Students can access free schemes for financial and contractual disputes. There are separate operators for domestic and international students:

Domestic students can use the Tertiary Education Learner Dispute Resolution service
International students can use the iStudent Complaints service.

Pastoral Care Code compliance complaints

If you believe that the University is failing to meet the outcomes or requirements of the Pastoral Care Code, you can make a complaint to NZQA as the administrator of the Code.