This presentation was given by Cláudia Sarrico of the Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon at the GCES Conference on Education Governance: The Role of Data in Tallinn on 12 February 2015 during the afternoon session workshop on Developing data systems.

1. GOVERNING COMPLEX EDUCATION SYSTEMS
Education governance: The role of data
Developing data systems – the case of Portugal
Cláudia S. Sarrico
ISEG Lisboa School of Economics and Management &
CIPES Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Portugal
Portugal’s representative in the governing board of CERI - OECD
Tallinn, 12th February 2015

2. What type of data is collected?
Social, economic and
cultural background of
students
• Occupation of
parents
• Income support
status
• Parental education
• Age of students
Characteristics of
school staff – teachers
and support staff
• Age
• Experience
• Career positioning
• Salaries
• Absenteeism
Characteristics of the
school
• Number of students
• Students per class
• Course provision
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3. What type of data is collected?
Achievement
• Transition
• Completion
• Drop-out
• Internal classifications
• External classification
(national exams)
Satisfaction survey
• Students
• Staff
• Parents
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4. At which level?
• Data is collected for each individual, student or member of staff,
school, and group of schools (management unit)
By whom?
• Data collected by schools and sent to central administration:
• Directorate-General for the Statistics of Education and Science
(DGEEC)
• National exam data is collected and administered by
• ‘National Examination Jury’ (JNE), Directorate-General for
Education
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5. For what?
Management of the system
School evaluation
Student evaluation
• national exam classifications in years 4, 6, 9 and 12
Access to higher education
• national exam classifications in year 12
Information to the public
• http://infoescolas.mec.pt/
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6. What challenges have we experienced while developing the
data system? How have we resolved them?
Initial dispersion of data among different authorities: schools, regional education authorities
(now extinct), central offices and agencies.
• System started to become more centralised, formalised and systematised in 2006 with the development of central
database ‘MISI’, now integrated in the Directorate-General for the Statistics of Education and Science.
Missing data
• The burden of collecting data is facilitated by improved IT systems
• Making the collection of data compulsory
• Data on private schools is not as comprehensive as for state schools
Incorrect data
• Manuals and FAQs to help with entering data
• Utilization of data demonstrates its importance
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7. What challenges have we encountered when using the data
system? How are they being resolved?
Dispersion of data
• Much improved with creation of DGEEC, but
• different ownership of exam data is still a problem regarding data integration
Data protection issues
• Individuals’ data is protected by law and requires anonymization before it can be used
• Anonymization requires extra effort and limits access
Lack of capacity to interpret the data
• Capacity would normally be totally developed to collection effort
• Open data initiatives to harness capacity from the research community
Lack of political will
• Open data initiative is making data available to those wishing to use it
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8. How do you ensure it is used appropriately?
School evaluation
• Training the assessors
• Evaluation models that distinguish between observed achievement and expected
achievement
Usage by researchers
• Protocols to follow research ethics
• Provision of anonymised individual data
Information to the public
• Explanations regarding the data and indicators produced
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