Abstract:

There is no one answer to the question of how ready an education industry is for advanced analytics. The advanced analytics is one of the core tools to provide innovations, sustainable development and foster productivity of the education system.

In general, education system needs to have a solid understanding of the data they have and what questions they need to answer. They should have access to skilled and experienced human resources and technologies. Education system also need the right culture and attitude towards analytics. Successful analytics initiatives usually require buy-in from the industry's leadership, which is needed to commit the necessary resources and prioritize analytics within the system. Finally, education industry leaders should have a clear vision of how advanced analytics can benefit the system.

EU cohesion policy has set a menu of 5 policy objectives supporting growth for the period 2021-2027 where the number one is ”a more competitive and smarter Europe”. Up to 85% of funds will be allocated on the first and the second goals. In other words, majority of funds will be provided for innovative and smart economic changes - research and skills development, support for entrepreneurship, digitization and digital connections, and climate neutrality, adaptation to climate change and environmental protection.

Digital transformation and advanced analytics are two key trends in the emerging age of data, analytics, and automation. Advanced analytics is the application of predictive and prescriptive models to analyze large, complex datasets in order to make critical business decisions. By leveraging advanced analytics, education system can gain insight into performance of educational institutions, processes, learning achievements and success factors driving it, and use this data to optimize and improve overall education system.

In this light, Author performed the survey to assess the readiness of Latvia’s organizations for advanced analytics by industries highlighting education industry. The questionnaire was developed based on an academic literature review, reports and publications by researchers, analytical sector, industry experts and Author’s professionals experience in advanced analytics industry.

Majority of respondents were attracted using online panel provider https://intraresearch.com. Additional channel was created to attract respondents on homepage http://www.raaconsulting.eu/ with help of Google Ads. For quantitative data processing MS Excel and R software were used. The survey was open from 2021, December 20 to 2022, March 31.

The Author found readiness level for advanced analytics by industries and explored much deeper education industry to identify barriers to implement advanced analytics in education industry. The findings are used to provide set of recommendations how to implement advanced analytics in education system. Most of educational institutions do not have Analytics strategy, majority use spreadsheets based analytical tools, half of organizations use mostly only internal data, more than third part of organizations do not have any analytical resources. It leads to conclusion that majority of Latvia’s educational institutions and system are far from ability to improve productivity, be able to maximize the potential of the digital environment, to exploit data to make data-driven and automated decisions. Thus, puts under danger the sustainability of the educational institutions itself.

Keywords:

Advanced analytics, barriers to implement advanced analytics, advanced analytics in education.