This paper describes and discusses the transformation of school governance in the era of digitalization in education. It focuses on how the production and use of big data at different levels affect policymaking and how big data-based policies have the consequences in education practices within the European education contexts and from the Swedish experiences. The datafication of education through digital technology gives rise to the digital governance of education that increasingly influences the organisation and management of the national education system, which is resulted in the structure shifts in education governance. On the one hand, big data derived from testing and surveys facilitates the comparison and creation of global benchmarks that impacts the governance of education systems to be more centralised at international and national level. And on the other hand, when data and information become more available at the local level, it enables organisational-level decision-making to break down hierarchical structures and become more distributed. Data based steering at different levels then puts considerable pressure on schools through the organised school inspection system, the strategy of self-monitoring, self-evaluation and self-formation that are closely related to managerial accountability or answerability of school governance.