Scaling education management information system innovations within and across country borders through research co-creation

• In Event: Moving evidence into action through inter-country knowledge exchange: Lessons from the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX)

Proposal

In a joint KIX project with UNESCO Institute of Statistics and Save the Children, the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo is researching the feasibility of scaling innovations in the implementation of Educational Management Information Systems (EMIS). This is conducted using a participatory approach through action research in close collaboration with education authorities in Togo, the Gambia and Uganda, who have hosted peer reviews by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) highlighting the need for an integrated EMIS for informed decision making at all levels of the education system as well as severe limitations in data utilization.

The research is built around a generic information system platform called DHIS2, which has been deployed at scale in the for the capture, processing, visualization and dissemination of data to support decentralized public health administration in 87 low and lower middle-income. DHIS2 is developed as a digital public good by organizations such as the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), WHO, UNICEF, The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), The Global Fund, GAVI, and the US CDC. Thus the research studies EMIS deployments that leverage the national capacity already cultivated in the health sector.

Two vital partners in the project are two HISP expert hubs in East and West Africa, who both have extensive experience in supporting large scale information systems deployments as well as capacity building and form a key part expanding the global Community of Practice around the platform to encompass EMIS into a series of DHIS2 Academies. There is keen interest in the DHIS2 community regarding how to translate the flexibility of DHIS2 into “best practice” models and configurations for education sector needs.

The implementation research project addresses the following key problem areas; 1) systematic data collection aligned with international standards 2) improving data utilization at multiple levels of the education system 3) scaling EMIS innovations within and across country borders.

We co-create knowledge with different stakeholders through the design of data analysis tools.

A key principle of the HISP network is learning across geographical sites, which aligns superbly with the Africa 19 Hub as they address the Data Challenge. Furthermore, the partnership is establishing an EMIS Centre of Excellence in The Gambia and developing a diploma and a master program in education management information systems to be hosted at the University of the Gambia which will serve as a capacity building hub for the region.

As part of the KIX project, we provide concrete analytical tools to ADEA’s continental policy dialogues, in accordance with a joint Communiqué from the 2022 EMIS Academy in Banjul and develop concrete dashboards that serve to guide discussions beyond any specific software solutions.

Author

• Knut Staring, University of Oslo