UK Department for Education raises career potential for the next generation with Microsoft Entra Verified ID

The student viewpoint

Growing up in a digital age characterised by instant access to information via a mobile device, the teenage population is often overwhelmed when applying to universities and apprenticeships—a cumbersome, document-intensive process that can take days to complete. “Our research shows that navigating the system is difficult, time consuming, and stressful for students,” says Lynne Burdon, Product Owner for Project Titan at the Department for Education. “They don’t always have access to passports and all the other documents a programme needs.” Programmes and applications are also not standardised. So, students must re-enter the same data again and again. After applications are submitted, programmes can take up to four weeks to verify for eligibility.

Burdon also highlights those students with learning challenges and disabilities who don’t often let their educational institutions know that they need support, limiting their full potential. “We need a way for students to own their data, share it with their further education providers, and get the support they need to get their qualifications,” she says. “Higher failure and withdrawal rates occur when students don’t share this information.” 

The education provider viewpoint

Burdon’s team found that providers were just as unhappy with the way education data was handled. They cited the excessive time and cost involved with gathering and manually entering the data, verifying its accuracy, and verifying the student. “The time universities spend on manually entering student data could be better spent on giving those students face-to-face advice and guidance,” says Burdon.

Providers must embark on a complicated process that requires 200 data items per student to get DfE reimbursement. “To sustain DfE funding, programmes have to make sure not only that each student is who they say they are but also that the student can be proven to have satisfied the funding compliance requirements,” adds Burdon. “If they hadn’t, the programme won’t receive the funding it’s entitled to—a major pain point.”

The DfE pain points

Their respective responsibilities give Beresford and Burdon insights into the shortcomings created by a multiplicity of third-party systems. For example, each further education provider has its own student information application. “We’re asking repeatedly for data that resides somewhere in the system,” says Beresford. “There’s a simple answer. By verifying student credentials efficiently and sharing the relevant information at the point of interaction, we could make the system much easier for everyone to navigate.”

Burdon expresses a concern shared by other educators and administrators. “Now, proving simple data points like their age forces students to share a great deal of information about themselves because documents like passports, which traditionally are used for that purpose, hold so much other information that isn’t relevant.” She muses, “What if we could give them a credential that simply confirms, ‘I’m over 18’ without inadvertently sharing extra data such as the student’s address, actual date of birth, and other crucial personal information?”

Focusing on identity

The DfE engaged with Microsoft partner Methods. “We knew that we could help DfE make much better use of its enormous data store,” says Hal Angseesing, Solution Architect for Decentralised Identity at Methods. “It’s exciting to see how much benefit we can create by giving control back to the students—the owners of that data.” He points out that as an alternative, the DfE could have given each student a unique learner number, which would give the department full access to the student’s records. But that goes against the DfE’s privacy-first ethos. The data about programme enrolment gathered from students using their verifiable credentials can be anonymised, putting the right statistics in the right hands as needed—no less and no more.

Using Microsoft Entra Verified ID to verify credentials for students also cuts out the time needed to verify exam results so that students can register for follow-on courses. “This is not about technology,” says Angseesing. “This is absolutely about students’ needs. Now, they have an easy way to see all their DfE records.”

Beresford looks forward to using verifiable student credentials to improve all aspects of the enrolment process. “When students approve their data for sharing with an educational institution, we can personalise those interactions,” he says. “Suddenly, instead of having to ask, ‘What’s your name?,’ administrators can greet students by name and immediately get right to what’s important to that student, making students feel engaged at the first interaction.” With the new solution, students can apply to a programme within minutes rather than days. And that four-week waiting period for application verification can take a single afternoon.

Opening possibilities with Microsoft Entra Verified ID

The team considered several solution providers before making its decision. “We chose Microsoft Entra Verified ID because it works, and the Microsoft brand recognition creates trust when trying to propose to other stakeholders,” says Angseesing. As a governmental body, the DfE had to be sure that the solution would also satisfy several other criteria. “The government technology code of practice stipulates the DfE’s use of open-source technologies,” he continues. “Microsoft’s commitment to open standards is vital to us.”