Modernizing EMIS through digital technology, capacity building and participatory approaches

• In Event: Data-driven decision making through systems integration, utilization, and digitalization: the remarkable case study of The Gambia.

Proposal

Education policy and planning should be underpinned by good quality and up-to-date data. Data exists in many countries, but it is not systematically collected, it does not meet international standards, and it is not well-used throughout the education system. Approaches to improving these problems exist, but they have not been scaled across countries.
This project addresses the lack of “turnkey” education management information systems in the education sector that can be used sustainably and at scale in low-income countries. It aims to strengthen the capacity of ministries of education in Uganda, Togo, and the Gambia to adapt open source health information systems to local and national education sector needs for better policy formulation, planning, and implementation. More specifically, the project seeks to leverage a proven innovation in the health sector that will effectively enhance demand for data and information use at all levels of the education system and provide innovations that make the display and interactive use of digital data in management information systems accessible and useful to decision-makers.
This project involves an action research approach and uses community stakeholder mobilization, participatory development of data visualization tools for schools and communities. The presentation will describe the work in The Gambia, and how it has informed a second phase of applied research supported by KIX.

Author

• Terje Aksel Sanner, Universitet i Oslo, Instituttet for Informatikk