Many schools are at risk of “critical data loss”because they store information purely on-site,the government has warned.
New research carried out for the Department for Education, published today, reveals that 18 per cent of schools donot retain offline backups of critical data, or are unable to say whether they do.
And of these, more thanhalf have “on-premise only storage or systems”, the study found.
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“This potentially leaves these schools vulnerable to critical data loss,” the DfE said.
The findings arebased on the Education Technology (EdTech) Survey 2020-21, carried out for the government byCooperGibson Research.
“The majority of primary (80 per cent) and secondary (87 per cent) technical survey respondents agreed that they do retain offline backups of critical data”, thereport says.
“Although agreement was significantly higher amongst secondary school respondents, just over one-tenth (13 per cent) of primary school respondents were unable to provide this information.
“Of the schools which did not retain offline backups of critical data or who were unable to answer (18 per cent of all schools), over half (53 per cent) were using some form of on-premise only storage or systems,which suggests they may be vulnerable to critical data loss.”
