AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Considerable resources are spent on school leavers’ and graduates’ information systems (SLGIS) in numerous European countries, but it is not clear what happens to the results. This research investigates how school leavers’ and graduates’ data are produced and to what extent the data are then applied in educational policy planning, institutional decision-making and informing students. This investigation categorises the currently available SLGIS in Europe using documentary data, analysis of which leads to a typology and the selection of three distinct cases. These cases - England, Finland and the Netherlands – are explored based on 15 élite interviews in each country, and further documentary data. The reported uses of SLGIS are broadly similar across the different case study countries, despite the clear differences in the design of their SGLIS. This suggests that the ‘value’ might not be intrinsic to the data itself but it depends on the judgement of the society. On the other hand, their uses are contrasted in terms of data-production and data-utilisation based on the interplay of data-needs of the different actors regarding the SLGIS. The data-needs of the policy and the institutional levels differ substantially. For example, whereas policy is largely content with a national picture, institutions require more detailed information at the level of educational programmes. Findings like these suggest that national and international investment in SLGIS could be made more efficient.