BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOR many years, organisation and compilation of information within the different facets of the Ministry of Education were bound in the clutter and mountainous paperwork.
Information about students, their grades, tardiness and absenteeism, as well as information about teachers and examinations, among others, can be found shut away in large filing cabinets containing massive and extensive files, or stacked feet high on tables in different office rooms.
The retrieval of such information therefore, as one can imagine, would be tedious at best.
After some 14 years of preparation, laying of groundwork, sourcing funding and preparing the finished product, a ground-breaking step was taken with the official launch of the Online Education Management Information System (EMIS).
Students and senior officials of various private and public schools from across the Federation converged at the conference room of the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU) yesterday (Oct. 18) for the historic event, which is part of a move to propel the local education system into a more modernised mode of operation.
The old EMIS, according to Project Director Quinton Morton, was paper-based and, while that system has served the education system and its operatives, the launch of the online EMIS represents a first step towards electronic documentation of vital information.
The OAS-funded project, according to Morton, would promote and increase efficiency, productivity, accuracy, accountability and transparency
Morton explained that such information, including student grades, lateness records, staffing and enrollment, would be uploaded to the online EMIS system.
He also explained that each learning institution would have access to its information while the EMIS headquarters would have access to all the schools’ information.
Additionally, each student would have access to different levels of the system through which they would be able to access their grades, assignments and timetable; while teachers would be able to access information about their students, classes etc.
Parents would also be allowed access to the system, through which they can observe their children’s academic performance.
This, Morton said, does not mean that the paper-process would be eliminated; it would be maintained as a form of backup.
The sensitisation process has begun and the project coordinator indicated that all 41 primary and secondary schools, both public and private, are expected to be operating on the online EMIS by the end of this school year.
The system was designed by VIVID Methods and a brief demonstration was presented at the launch in the presence of students, principals, OAS representative Starret Greene and Chief Education Officer Patrick Welcome.
Morton told SKNVibes that the initial cost of the project is US$30 000.
