Data Governance

Data governance is usually framed as a technology problem: integrate the databases, standardise the formats, build the pipelines. I spent three years doing exactly that at national scale, and the conclusion was different — the technical part is the easy part.

The real obstacle is institutional. When twelve systems define “enrolment” in twelve different ways, each defensible within the logic of whoever built it, no architecture resolves the disagreement. It only propagates it faster, and with the appearance of objectivity.

I write here about what sits between the database and the decision: definitions, data stewardship, quality at the point of collection, privacy law applied to student records, and the unglamorous work of getting an administrator to trust a number that contradicts what they see in their own schools.