Building a shared view of data quality across the public sector

Case study with Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research

THE CUSTOMER

The Ministry of Education and Research plans national policies for education, research, youth, and language. It oversees all levels of education, from pre-primary through higher education, as well as hobby and adult learning, research and development, youth work, and the drafting of related legislation. The Ministry strategically manages several state agencies, foundations, and institutions by setting their goals, analyzing results, determining budgets, and providing supervision.

CHALLENGES

Prior to this initiative, the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research did not have a real time, consolidated view of data quality across its datasets, nor a single, centralized place for defining and managing data quality requirements. As a result, data validation was handled almost exclusively by analysts, placing the full responsibility for data quality on a limited group of specialists.

This operating model led to the increase of assumptions and differing interpretations of data and its quality. Data quality was frequently discussed and presumed, but validating or disproving these claims required significant time and manual effort. At the same time, there was a clear perception that data stakeholders lacked a shared understanding of the true state of the data. Teams expressed a need for faster access to reliable answers, reduced coordination overhead, and more consistent data checks across domains.

IMPACT

The Ministry’s data strategy aims to enable precise, evidence-based decision-making. A key prerequisite for this is the easy accessibility of necessary data and verified data quality. Using the platform allows the Ministry to conduct regular data quality checks, provide agreed-upon updates on key data quality aspects to relevant stakeholders, reduce decisions based on gut feeling or hearsay, and build greater confidence in existing data. In particular, the ability to assemble test suites is considered especially valuable.

Early results already show increased transparency and a more accurate picture of the available data, and as the Ministry continues to scale the platform internally, even greater benefits are expected.

In the long term, the Ministry aims to engage data providers more quickly and regularly than before, track compliance with data updates more easily, and monitor the impact of interventions. Increasingly, analysts, policymakers, and data support teams are seeing tangible benefits from using the software.

WHY SELECTZERO?

“Its flexibility and alignment with the Ministry’s data strategy make it a practical solution for evidence-based decision making and improved trust in data“

– Katre Seema, Head of Data Management at Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research