Digitalization of the Governance and Management of Education Systems: Opportunities and Challenges

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Launched in 2019, the GPE Knowledge and Exchange Program (KIX) seeks to support and facilitate the implementation of a stronger culture of knowledge and innovations use in education policies and planning processes in GPE partner countries. The goal of KIX is to significantly transform education systems through evidence-informed policies and practices.

To achieve this goal, GPE and the International Development Research Center of Canada (IDRC), the implementer of KIX, have created a set of mechanisms. One of them is the applied research mechanism. Its role is to generate primary and secondary evidence on key priority areas identified by GPE partner countries participating in KIX, with an emphasis on how to scale up the impact of innovations being researched. KIX brings together 89 GPE partner countries, mostly low- and middle-income countries, in which it currently funds 77 projects.

Efficient management of education systems has been a top priority for KIX since its inception in 2019. This concerns stems from the observation that many low-income countries in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia have faced challenges in the production and use of relevant and timely data to guide their decision-making and support their sector planning processes. Moreover, the national education management information systems (EMIS) in these countries have tended to provide limited information on the systems. Most of this information consisted of snapshots in given years of the systems in terms of number of schools, enrollment of students and the size of the teaching force. Very little information on the quality of the learning taking place in schools and characteristics of learners and teachers can be derived from the EMIS as they lack these key functionalities.

Cognizant of the above challenges, KIX data systems projects have been tasked to support GPE partner countries on how to better design and scale data systems in terms of enhanced data production, coverage of informational needs relevant to quality and equity issues, and analysis capacity. They also support the development and institutionalization of new organizational cultures for use of digital tools in the policy and planning processes. The KIX projects also advocate for linking and harmonizing the multitude of datasets in both the education sector and beyond.

The KIX Projects :

1) From Data to Action: Enhancing education policy and practice using innovative national data systems in Rwanda
This project explores how the Comprehensive Assessment Management Information System (CAMIS), which facilitates the gathering, analysis, and most crucially, application of formative data at all levels of education, can provide information about teaching practices and student learning to policymakers, such as Rwanda's Ministry of Education. It is a framework for collecting and storing continuous assessment scores in a national database and seeks to identify how data can be better integrated into the policy and planning process. 

2) The Data Must Speak (DMS) Positive Deviance research
Led by UNICEF Innocenti's Global Office for Research and Foresight, the Data Must Speak (DMS) Positive Deviance research, conducted in partnership with Ministries of Education in over 14 countries, uses digital tools and administrative datasets to identify school-level practices that allow some schools to excel despite resource constraints. This co-created research emphasizes the crucial role of grassroots stakeholders—teachers, headteachers, and communities—in driving educational improvements. By integrating these insights into national policy agendas and enhancing Education Management Information Systems (EMIS), DMS supports the digitalization of education system management.

3) Empowering districts and schools with data: A digital platform approach to co-create and scale education management information systems innovations
This project draws from decades of experimentation with a successful and innovative digital platform called the District Health Information System (DHIS2) carried out in the health sector by the Health Information Systems Program (HISP) of the University of Oslo. DHIS2 has recently been tried with success in the Gambia, Togo and Uganda to address the lack of “turnkey” education management information systems (EMIS) that can be used sustainably and at scale. This project builds on lessons in those three countries and responds to new demands from eSwatini, Mozambique, Senegal, and Sierra Leone to enhance data-driven decision making, including operationalization of GEI-related indicators at district and school levels.  

Objective of the panel :
- Present and discuss the evidence on how national governments are making the shift from static and limited data systems to more dynamic and granular ones.
- Discuss the challenges and opportunities of digitalization of governance and management of education systems (use of digital platforms)
- Analyze how digitization is impacting the organizational cultures in ministries of education and systems actors and stakeholders

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Organizer

• Sophie D'Aoust, IDRC GPE KIX

Chair

• Sophie D'Aoust, IDRC GPE KIX

Individual Presentations

• From Data to Action: Enhancing education policy and practice using innovative national data systems in Rwanda - Sarah Ojuando-Ndinya, Educate!; Meghan C Mahoney, Educate!

• The Data Must Speak (DMS) Positive Deviance Research: Digitalizing Educational Governance through Local Evidence - Jessica Bergmann, Unicef - Office of Research, Innocenti

• Empowering districts and schools with data: A digital platform approach to co-create and scale education management information systems innovations - Monica Grace Amuha, Health Information Systems Program Uganda

Discussant

• Evans Atis, Global Partnership for Education