Minding the Data Gap: Challenges to Informing Education Policy in Northern Ireland

Educational underachievement is a longstanding issue that has received continuous attention in Northern Ireland (NI). Understanding and addressing educational underachievement requires in-depth analyses to understand, monitor and address the disparities between pupils, and to facilitate such analysis, high quality data must be accessible, which can be used as a robust evidence base to inform education policy. However, despite The Executive Office in NI emphasising the importance of informing policy through objective evidence, there is currently a lack of comprehensive education data available for analysis. This chapter explores the barriers to informing education policy in NI, with particular attention paid to the issue of a lack of available data across the compulsory education system. Comparisons with practices in other UK jurisdictions are presented, whilst considering the unique position of NI, and how we might harness the learning from other nations to develop possible solutions to these existing barriers.