Crucial steps needed for child rights-respecting data governance for children's learning

The rise in data-driven education is marked by polarised discourses of hopes for the beneficial uses of data about children in education (“education data”) and harms, mainly from unreliable technologies and commercial exploitation. Those full of hopes say education data can be leveraged to improve administrative decision-making and resource allocation, personalised learning, learning analytics design and assistive technologies to enhance learning experience and outcome among children with physical as well as learning disabilities. Others raise serious concerns about data protection, privacy, responsible use and ownership and are wary of the known harms, ranging from algorithmic bias affecting students’ educational progression to discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 in local government decisions about education, welfare and social care.