Unspoken Challenges in Education Digital Identity Transformation
In education, digital identity isn’t just a login. It’s the foundation of access, accountability, and trust. But while many school systems are now modernising identity platforms, few are speaking openly about the real barriers that could derail their efforts.
From the outside, identity transformation looks like a technical upgrade — new platforms, tighter controls, better UX. But the real challenge is cultural, operational, and systemic. That’s the layer where most programs falter.
Cultural inertia is the silent killer
You can deploy the best identity platform available — but if day-to-day users still default to manual workarounds, the gains are lost. In many education departments, change is slow because trust in new systems is low. IT policy might say one thing, but staff behaviour says another.
Frontline educators often resist new tools that disrupt established routines, and many regions lack the change management frameworks needed to embed adoption. Until digital identity becomes the intuitive, preferred path for everyone from school support staff and casual teachers to principals, contractors, and even guardians, fragmentation will persist.
Governance gaps are well known — and still unresolved
Audit offices have issued warning after warning: privileged accounts are poorly managed, dormant access remains live, and monitoring is inconsistent. In NSW, for example, 68% of agencies didn’t manage privileged access adequately. Dormant high-access accounts were left active with no clear process for deprovisioning.
It’s a systemic issue — one audit noted 33 out of 37 admin accounts were dormant. Yet, too often, ownership is unclear and accountability diluted. Identity transformation means reengineering who owns what — and ensuring that systems and people align. While these figures cover all agencies, education environments face added risk: schools manage identity lifecycles across thousands of students and hundreds of locations, often with limited resourcing and high staff turnover.
Underinvestment leaves risk on the table
Identity is infrastructure. Like power or plumbing, it’s invisible until it breaks. That makes it easy to deprioritise. But delaying upgrades and governance reforms carries compounding costs: manual administration, security exposure, and eventually, public trust.
Deloitte research shows that 95% of C-level executives allocate less than 20% of their security budget to identity. For most departments, identity upgrades are viewed as one-time costs rather than long-term programs.
That short-term mindset exposes organisations to risk and undercuts long-term value. And while the finding applies across sectors, it reflects a familiar pattern in education: critical systems like identity often receive episodic funding, bundled with larger IT upgrades — rather than the long-term investment they demand.
Shadow IT is a symptom of a deeper problem
Teachers and school leaders are pragmatic. If official systems are too slow or rigid, they’ll find workarounds. That workaround might be a rogue cloud application or an unsanctioned identity store. It’s a reality across all states.
The problem isn’t just the risk — it’s the signal: staff are telling us what they need. The message we hear from the field is clear: “Shadow IT doesn’t exist because people want to break rules — it exists because the official tools haven’t kept up.” Fixing shadow IT starts by listening and delivering better sanctioned alternatives. Even when internal systems improve, the external landscape remains volatile.
Vendor overreliance blindsides governance
Recent incidents have shown just how easily platform changes can outpace department oversight. In 2025, NSW Department of Education discovered Microsoft Teams had quietly enabled biometric data collection during online lessons.
The change went unnoticed for a month. That’s a wake-up call: relying on global platforms without real-time governance introduces systemic risk. Departments must proactively monitor vendor roadmaps, audit configurations, and reassert their standards regularly. Trust is earned — but it must also be verified.
Identity complexity in education is like nowhere else
Massive user volumes. Continuous enrolment and churn. Overlapping roles. Multiple identity sources. Education identity isn’t a tidy enterprise directory — it’s a living, shifting system that requires continuous orchestration.
A single region may manage over 200,000 identities when accounting for students, staff, and guardians. Identity states change constantly with students transferring, staff turnover, and casual workforce flux. Many departments still handle this complexity with legacy scripts or manual provisioning. That creates fragility. Identity transformation must account for lifecycle automation, data quality issues, and continuous reconciliation across systems.
The uncomfortable truth?
Identity transformation in education isn’t just about choosing the right platform. It’s about rethinking how access is governed, how trust is delegated, and how systems adapt as schools evolve. It’s deep operational reform.
The good news? These challenges are solvable and must be solved — and no organisation needs to face them alone. Partners who specialise in education identity transformation can help turn complexity into clarity. That’s how transformation becomes more than a project. It becomes a platform for progress.