Strengthening national Teacher Management Information Systems and online CPDs for teachers in Zambia

• In Event: Strengthening Education Sector Capacities for Resilient Education Management Information Systems in Africa: Experiences from Five KIX Africa 19 Hub Countries

Proposal

The Teaching Council of Zambia (TCZ) is a professional regulatory body that has developed an automated Teacher Information Management System (TMIS) for the country. Before the establishment of the Council, the education sector in Zambia lacked an effective TMIS.
In March 2013, a national law was passed by the Zambian Parliament which requires all teachers to be registered with the TCZ and get teacher practising licences. Further, practising teachers are required to gain credit points for participating in continuing professional development (CPD) programmes. CPD programmes constitute a variety of activities meant to improve teachers’ professional knowledge and skills. These include seminars, conferences, meetings, and research, among others. Using the manual system, the registration and licencing of teachers and awarding of CPD credit points was not an easy task considering the large size of the country (752,000 square kilometres). Further, the Ministry of Education and Teaching Service Commission did not have systems that provided real time data on teacher-matters. This created a challenge for decision making in the education sector as the date available them was always outdated and un-reliable.

With an overwhelming mandate to regulate the teaching profession, the Council prioritised the development of an automated teacher information management system. This was a necessary tool for the effective delivery of teacher regulation services in collaborating with other stakeholders interested in teacher issues. Therefore, the Teacher Management Information System was developed as a home-grown solution to address the teacher information management gap. The TCZ used its own human resource from the Information Technology Department to develop the system. From time to time, the TMIS keeps being improved upon in order to make it user-friendly, updated and relevant. Further, on-going capacity building for system-users in schools, districts, provinces and national headquarters is part of this system in order to address digital literacy among older Zambian teachers.

With this innovation in place, Zambia has a comprehensive data base for all teachers (230,000) including their qualifications so long they are trained from either within or from outside the country. These teachers may be employed in the public or private sectors or may not be employed at all. This system has been significantly useful during teacher recruitment as screening and selection of candidates is easily done using TMIS. Further, education administrators as teacher-supervisors are able to track or monitor teachers in real time in order to ascertain staffing levels and the transfer of teachers from one school to another. This has greatly contributed to operational efficiency and effective management of the teacher recruitment, promotion, discipline and placement processes. Further, school-based CPD programmes are being managed more effectively as teacher-records are automated. The same data base is also being referred to by the government regarding teacher-supply and demand issues. Where the internet connectivity is available, the TMIS is working very well. Overall, access to teacher data and exchange of this data is smooth compared to the past

Author

• Ebby Mubanga, THE TEACHNG COUNCIL OF ZAMBIA