The Ministry of Education and Sports on Tuesday, launched the re-developed Education Management Information System (EMIS) aimed at helping track all learners’s information in the country’s education institutions.
The new system was launched during the sector review meeting, presided over by the Minister for Education and Sports, Janet Kataaha Museveni at Kololo grounds.
Vincent Ssozi, the Assistant commissioner Statistics, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of Education and Sports said EMIS will be useful in addressing some of the pending learning challenges eating up the education sector especially as more learners return to school in January next year.
“The system will enable us know how many learners we have in the country by level of education and gender. But also, we shall be able to track transition rates from primary to secondary,” Ssozi said.
He added, “It will also give us confidence on the information we are entering into the data system.”
Ssozi made the remarks on Tuesday, December 14, at the two-day education review workshop taking place at Kololo Airstrip grounds.
As a way of dealing with the issue of ghost teachers, Ssozi said the ministry was going to require all of them to provide their National Identification Numbers (NINs) on the system in addition to other details.
This information will be then be integrated with other government systems specifically National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) to validate whether a specific person exists.
Procured for the education sector through the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance under its National ICT Initiatives Support Program (NIISP) programme, the re-developed system will be available to various stakeholders at various levels of decision and data consumption for the effective planning, management and accountability.
In October after announcing launch plans, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Ramathan Ggoobi, said in an interview that the ministry was actively participating in financing and developing EMIS and other related tools, to improve education quality in the country.
“The Ministry is going to finance the roll out of these systems as well as other digital platforms intended automate public services to achieve efficiency (lower cost of delivery), transparency and accountability. On these add eGP (electronic government procurement) that we are going to roll out after a successful pilot in particular entities,” Ggoobi said in October.
The new EMIS to weed out ghost students.
It’s worth noting that the old EMIS tracker used the school census approach where hardcopy questionnaires were distributed to schools. Consequently, school head teachers were taking advantage of the system to inflate the number of learners.
However, according to officials, the new system will help crop out double counting of learners or learner inflation, since schools will not be permitted to receive and register learners in EMIS without first submitting learner transfer requests into EMIS.
Why EMIS introduction is important
The new EMIS software, which will cover information management from pre-primary, primary and secondary schools including tertiary and non-tertiary institutions, will be online-based and accessible to all stakeholders including District Education Officers, School Inspectors, Chief Administrative Officers and Resident District Commissioners.
It boasts a web portal which schools access to create their EMIS user accounts and to update data about their learners, teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities including physical education and sports.
Two of the peculiar features of EMIS are the introduction of unique learner identification number (LIN) and the functionality to track how learners will transfer from one school to another.
The LIN, automatically generated by EMIS, will work as the unique identifier until all learners have been issued the National Identification Number (NIN) by NIRA. Each LIN will be linked to the NIN of the learner’s parent or guardian. In any case, the LIN will be a mandatory requirement for UNEB registration, and a learner will use same LIN from pre-primary to University.
The new EMIS is expected to handle records of close to 15 million learners from over 48,000 education institutions across Uganda.
How it works
According to information from earlier presentations made by the Developer, SMS One Ltd, the EMIS tracker is expected to integrate all data and information about leaners in the education and sports sector, make it available to various stakeholders at various levels of decision and data consumption for the effective planning, management and accountability.
According to the presentations to senior government officials by Mr. David Mushabe, the SMS One Managing Director seen by this writer, the re-developed EMIS is supposed to address the challenges faced by the Education Ministry during the EMIS data collection, processing and analysis.
The new EMIS software, will for example cover information management from pre-primary, primary and secondary schools including tertiary and non-tertiary institutions, and will be online-based and accessible to all stakeholders including District Education Officers, School Inspectors, Chief Administrative Officers and Resident District Commissioners.
According to the developers, an intuitive web portal will help schools access and create their EMIS user accounts and update data about their learners, teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities including physical education and sports.
"For new schools wishing to submit applications for either EMIS number, license or registration certificate for their institutions, will do so in EMIS. Previously, these processes have been manual and taking a lot of time to accomplish. With the new EMIS, both the application and renewal processes shall be handled online," the manual for the system reads.
Two of the peculiar features of EMIS, according to the developers include introduction of unique learner identification number (LIN) and the functionality to track how learners will transfer from one school to another.
The LIN, automatically generated by EMIS, will work as the unique identifier until all learners have been issued the National Identification Number (NIN) by NIRA.
Each LIN will be linked to the NIN of the learner’s parent or guardian. In any case, the LIN will be a mandatory requirement for UNEB registration, and a learner will use same LIN from pre-primary to University.
To avoid double counting of learners or learner inflation, schools will not be permitted to receive and register learners in EMIS without first submitting learner transfer requests into EMIS.
Top officials at the Education and Finance Ministries, are confident that the use of LIN and the learner transfer features in EMIS are expected to weed out ghost learners.
Once fully implemented, the new EMIS will be handling records of close to 15 million learners from over 48,000 education institutions across Uganda.
There are reportedly high expectations by Education Ministry top management, and therefore the success of EMIS completion will be a key legacy project for the current leadership, with its rollout welcoming learners back to school next year.