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Submission Date: 16 September 2013
REPORT OF THE STUDY TOUR TO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION (NUEPA), NEW DELHI, INDIA
1. Background:
The Ministry of Education, Ghana has a vision of EMIS that focuses primarily on monitoring and reporting on its annual education census. The EMIS has been notable in recent years for producing relatively comprehensive statistical coverage of pre-primary, primary, secondary, teacher training, and technical and vocational sub-sectors. In addition, it has provided technical support to the institutional entities responsible for producing the non-formal and tertiary education statistics. Ghana is among those African countries that regularly address the requirements of UNESCO Institute of Statistics Global Monitoring with reports on its education statistics (including Higher Education).
Currently, timeliness is of a major essence. Relevant data is essential to drive performance related management, an integral feature of the Ministry’s national, district and regional reporting systems and hence the strong desire to consistently improve upon EMIS’ capacity, framework, processes, technology to mention but a few of all the structures required of a good system for it to be able to function efficiently and as effectively as possible.
Thus, stakeholders of the EMIS in Ghana have never relented in their efforts to improve upon the system and to ensure that the desirability of a good system is ultimately achieved.
It was in light of the above, invitation was extended to Dr Arun C. Mehta sometime in August, 2012 to also evaluate processes of the system and possibly recommend the way forward. It should be indicated that the above happened after a twelve member delegation from Ghana had been exposed to a similar system in place at NUEPA, India.
The EMIS team’s motivation to observe the system and process in in India was as a result Dr Mehta’s recommendations to improve the EMIS in his report.
All the earlier interactions and this study tour to NUEPA have been all supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
2. Purpose:
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to appreciate the urgent need to adopt and effect changes with the view to conforming to best practices of other institutions and countries around the world.
3. Indicated Areas of Interest of EMIS to NUEPA
1) Technical details
• The application used in the data collection.
• The backend database used (i.e. whether MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle etc)
• Hardware requirements
• Calibre of staff involved
• Mode of data collection (Manual/Online)
• Data entry observation
• Reporting Module(s) associated with the database
• The scripting language used in designing the interface (i.e. either PHP, ASP.NET, Java etc.)
2) Process of data collection/ dissemination
• Outline of the whole data collection/ dissemination process
• Functions of NUEPA, state, district and school in EMIS
• Identified challenges of the process
• Collaboration with private school/institutions regarding the annual schools census
• How the School Report Card (SRC) is integrated with the EMIS data collection.
• Future roadmaps
4. Trip Schedule:
19 – 24 August
19-Aug Mon Accra (17:30) - Dubai (night flight) 20-Aug Tue Dubai - Delhi (09:45)
21-Aug Wed Delhi
AM – NUEPA (briefing)
PM - State Education Office in Delhi 22-Aug Thurs Delhi
AM - District Education Office PM - School visiting
3 5. List of Participants:
It should be indicated that the study tour was originally planned to have taken place in May 2013 with a proposed eleven member participants. This consisted of seven members from the SRIMPR division of the Ministry of Education, three members from the Basic Education Division (BED) and a JICA Expert in-charge of Decentralised Education Management with the Ghana Education Service. The date and composition of the team has had to be reviewed at the instance of NUEPA on several occasions until the 21st to 22nd August, 2013 date was eventually arrived at. The final composition of the participants was as follows;
1. Dr Dominic Pealore Director Ministry of Education 2. Samuel A. Okang Computer Programmer Ministry of Education 3. Herbert Gorman (Jnr) Computer Programmer Ministry of Education
4. Edward Dogbey Statistician Ministry of Education
5. Veronica Harvey Kutin Statistician/Research Ministry of Education 6. Belinda Frimpong Administrative Officer Ministry of Education 7. Obeng Ennin Darko Assit. ICT Coordinator Ghana Education Service 8. Daisuke Kanazawa JICA Expert Ghana Education Service
Mr Daisuke Kanazawa was unable to make the trip due to challenges encountered in securing an Indian visa by the departure date of the journey.
6. Acknowledgement:
The Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service and the entire members of staff of the Statistics, Research, Information Management and Public Relation (SRIMPR) division of the Ministry will want to express their profound gratitude to the Japanese Government and the people of Japan for funding the study tour of the division. Indeed, this will go down history as the first time that number of members of staff had been exposed to such a study tour.
Secondly, the Vice Chancellor, Staff and all members of the university community at National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi India deserve much commendation for graciously hosting the team from the Ministry of Education, Ghana. Besides the exposure to technical know-how and experiences, it was also realised that much financial commitment went into the planning and the hosting of the team.
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opportunity. They readily granted permission for the team to travel and ensured that all administrative challenges were resolved to the best of their capabilities.
All the above may not have come to fruition without the coordination from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Expert responsible for Decentralized Education
Management at the Ghana Education Service (GES). He deserves to be acknowledged for spearheading the processes and making sure that resource for the trip was well sourced and coordinated.
Finally the Director, SRIMPR and the entire team must be pat on the shoulders for availing themselves for such a wonderful educational tour. Undoubtedly, there is no gainsaying that experiences learnt will be availed to improving the desired Education Management Information System in Ghana.
7. Meeting With NUEPA Officials:
Day One
Members of the team gathered at the Conference room of NUEPA at exactly 9:00 am awaiting the arrival of the Vice Chancellor of the university. He did show up at 10:30 am with Prof. A.C. Mehta and Prof. Sreekanth. The Vice Chancellor (Prof. R. Govinda) was formally introduced by Prof. A. C. Mehta and the outline of our visit.
In his address, the Vice Chancellor was extremely happy that the team was able to make it to India despite the numerous postponements of the visit. He expressed joy over deepening relationship between the two institutions and indicated that the doors of NUEPA was widely opened for all persons and institutions interested in academic pursuits and or collaborations. In his concluding remark, he profusely regretted about the kind of accommodation challenges the team experienced on arrival at Hotel Star Rock where they had earlier booked for lodging. He finally craved the indulgence of his colleagues and the Ghanaian team to alter the already tight time-table to allow for a short presentation on the establishment of a Pan African Institute by NUEPA in Burundi under the auspices of the Indian government.
Dr Dominic Pealore, the Director of the SRIMPR division and the leader of the group thanked the Vice Chancellor and his colleagues for their willingness to collaborate and share experiences of India with the Ghanaian delegation in the area of education management information system. He outlined some of the expectations of the group and assured NUEPA authorities that lessons learnt will certainly be applied for the betterment of our EMIS back home.
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assistance from UNICEF. At each stage, successes and weaknesses/challenges were vividly pointed out to serve as a guide. For example, migrating EMIS application software from Microsoft Access to Oracle with some modifications from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) was given elaborate illustration. According to Prof. A.C. Mehta, many successes had been chalked when the India government sponsored Elementary Education for All in 2001. Instructively that was the first time all the 35 regions and the 602 districts were covered in the area of elementary education. Coverage was further enhanced in 2005/6 and as he put it, the country had never looked back since then.
The system was further extended to the secondary sector in 2007/8 where an attempt was made to develop an on-line application for data capture. However that attempt encountered some challenges. From their point of view, on-line data capture will only be very useful when data entry is done at the school level. When asked whether Wide Area Network (WAN) may be used to successfully carry out on-line data capture they answered in the affirmative but posited that strict adherence to some conditions are desirable. For instance, a condition of no third party relationship cannot be overlooked.
Aside from the historical background, Prof. Mehta also exposed the group to some best practices of the Indian EMIS. Notable among them are four (4) conditions that must always be met:
1. There must be one format/questionnaire for all grades (Grades 1 – 12)
2. The format is always printed from the software taking cognisance of static and dynamic variables
for easy filling. The printing is done at the state level.
3. Data is entered at the elementary(DISE) level of education
4. Identification of Model Officers in-charge of coordination. These are not necessarily technical
persons but are there to ensure that there is 100% coverage of the schools.
To ensure nationwide coverage and consistency in the quality of data collection, NUEPA have also adopted the following under listed procedures over the years.
1. There was always a national orientation programme leading to the national schools census.
2. 13/14 September, the university broadcast an interactive programme both on radio and on
television where findings of the previous census are disseminated and as well as pointing out shortfalls on the part of school heads who fill the format. The platforms allow viewers/listeners the opportunity to text or call-in to either ask questions or make inputs.
3. During the national exercise, school formats found with inconsistencies are sent back to the
schools for correction.
4. At the end of a particular schools census, newly established schools to be captured in next or
subsequent census can be identified as schools cannot exist without express permission of the District Education directorate. Besides, the law of the country empowers education authorities to close down defaulting schools be they public or private.
5. Just at the tail end of every schools census, a separate agency which is not connected to the
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Prof. A.C. Mehta concluded his session by admitting that he was not in any way suggesting that data collection exercise of NUEPA was fool proof in India, irrespective of the above best practices they constantly engage in.
It was the turn of Mr Navin Bhatia when the group resumed the technical session just before lunch break. Incidentally, he is a member of a team of officers who developed the software application for the data capture and therefore was well grounded to deal with the numerous questions thrown at him by the visiting team.
He systematically took the group through the various administrative structure of the system. He made mention of the existence of 35 State/Union Territories, 662 Districts and 7800 Blocks. Below the Blocks were Villages/Wards within which the school(s) is located. This actually demonstrated the kind of a bottom-up approach that is devised for effective data collection, analysis and feedback to the schools. Interestingly, the same structure had been factored into the formation of their school codes. Thus with a glance one can use the code of a school to be able to tell the district, the block and village/ward where the school is situated.
Mr Bhatia through interaction cautioned against the creation of separate databases for each year as is being done in the case of Ghana and enlightened the group as to how mapping can be used anytime new districts are created. This ensures that the previous identification codes of the schools can be referenced for purposes of trend analysis.
The software application (Database), the group was told was programmed in Oracle with the frontend running on Power Builder. It appeared the Computer Programmers from Ghana were not that familiar with the Power Builder software.
On the issue of training, Mr Bhatia insisted on constant and continuous training as that was the surest way to keep and maintain credible data. To him training must not be limited to only technical persons involved in the data collection chain but rather be extended to policy makers, researchers and ordinary users of the reports that are generated from the database. Again such persons must be conversant with the data collection instruments. That way, deductions, inferences and conclusions they make with regards to the dataset will not be a misconstrued one.
In the database colours are used as dashboard to indicate inconsistencies to the viewer in the course of data entry. Handling teachers profile in the database was not problematic. Teacher database has been delinked from school database and as a result does not pose any challenge. They may get transferred from one school to the other or across districts but can be traced through mapping wherever they are.
The database adequately had reporting features/modules that is tailored to the needs of the end user. Drill-down and Roll-up technologies have been combined to come up with either comparative or single year reports.
As per their administrative structure, data can only be uploaded from a lower level to the next higher one. Thus the administrative hierarchy of the MIS structure is strictly adhered to.
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degree of disability among children to mention but a few. There is an aspect which also looks at teacher qualification and links it with children’s achievement in class.
The last presentation centred on the impending establishment of India/Africa Institute of Planning in Burundi by the Indian government around 4:38 pm. The group was told there are about 118 institutions dotted around the world with 13 of them located in Africa. The Indian government intends to fund and run it for four years and thereafter hand it over to the African Union to run. The intention among other things is to build capacity in Africa, enhance knowledge base of the African and to serve as a platform for the exchange of ideas among member countries.
Dr Dominic Pealore on behalf of the group thanked the Indian authorities for their dedication to the course of the Ghanaian team. He gave out two CDs containing soft copies of EMIS statistical digest dating from 2000/2001 academic year to date (2012/2013) – one to NUEPA and the other to the India/Africa Institute of Planning.
Day Two
As per the time-table, the day was set aside for field visits. The group was led by Prof. Sreekanth and one of the System Administrators of NUEPA, Ms Aparna Moorkerjee. The first point of call happened to be Talampus High School located at Gurgoan in New Delhi, India. Over here members of the team had the opportunity to interactive with the teachers, asked probing questions and scrutinised various school records and formats used in the data collection exercises. Prominent among them was the use of students’ identification code to track school dropouts in the system. It must be indicated that this visit was not restrictive. The opportunity was there to observe so many unrelated issues of interest. One of such issues had to do with the Indian version of schools feeding programme (Mid-Day Meal) which is served to grades 1 to 8. There was a kind of collaboration between the government of India and the various communities where the schools are located. The government was responsible for the provision of locally produced foodstuffs whilst the communities commit themselves to the provision of ingredients for the stew.
Our next visit took us to Jakopura Girls Secondary also located in the vicinity of Grugoan. Members of the Cluster Resource Centre were there to explain issues to us and ensure that all boggling questions were sufficiently explained to the best of their knowledge and experience. At this school members had the opportunity to ask extensively questions on a biometric clocking device installed to check teacher punctuality and absenteeism.
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The last place of visit for the day after lunch was one of the Block Resource Centres (BRC) where the data from various cluster levels are captured. We had closer look at the computer installations and how data was captured and uploaded to the next level of the hierarchy. Activities of the day came to a close at about 4:45 pm.
8. Logistical Challenges:
It is imperative to point out that the organisation of the study tour brought in its wake a lot of challenges. The first and foremost had to do with agreeing on the month and date. Ideally the group had wanted to undertake the tour in May, 2013 but this was not suitable to the host until finally a compromised month of August was agreed upon.
Besides, the composition of membership for the trip also posed a lot of challenges in the sense that eleven member team was suggested due to technical reasons. However the size of the group was reduced from eleven to three and then back to six, seven and finally to eight persons to ensure that it fits into guidelines given by NUEPA.
As a result of the above, when the month and date was finally agreed upon by NUEPA, the group had only about ten days within which to plan and embark on the trip. Consequently, it became extremely difficult meeting conditions laid down by the Indian High Commission in Accra for the acquisition of an Indian visa. Interestingly some of the visas for the members were secured when passengers of the airline were about finishing boarding formalities. Sad to say that much as we tried, we were unable to secure visa for one of the group members - a Japanese national and as a result the High Commission indicated that they needed more days to work on his visa.
Whilst preparing for the trip, the group booked accommodation on-line with Hotels.Com, confirmed and in due course fully paid with a credit card. Upon arrival in New Delhi the group drove straight to the hotel only to be told that it was temporarily closed down due to electricity problems. Besides management also indicated that there has been no communication between them and the Agent, and so had no knowledge about the bookings. Consequently we had to quickly arrange for an alternative accommodation with the help of the drivers who picked us up from the airport. Such an unfortunate occurrence was not an experience one would wish to encounter the second time.
9 9. Summary of Observations:
To start with, it is important to indicate that the group has no difficulty pointing out that the broad objective(s) of the study had been achieved. One of the intentions is to have a closer look at what pertains in NUEPA and for that matter India and be able to do an in-depth analysis of the two systems having in mind differences in issues with respect to socio-cultural backgrounds, level of technology to mention but a few. The team is now in a position to identify the gaps that may have existed over time and some of the possible solutions to ensure the desired results. One of the positive signs of the system in place at NUEPA is to depend on local expertise rather than consultants. The design and maintenance of the application software depends on local experts. A way of constantly building capacity and minimising cost to bring about effectiveness. As a result of the above they have been able to design all the reporting modules that serve the needs of the institutions and other users across the country. Thus literally moving the data from its physical location to the doorsteps of the users by the click of a button.
Background of officers to be appointed to man their BRC and CRC was indicated to be very paramount. Strictly officers to be in-charge of the above mentioned centres must of necessity be computer programmers/operators who understand what is required of them.
Regular training of officers involved in the exercise was considered very important, especially those aimed at improving the quality of data they get from the school level. All manner of media is used to impact the needed skills across the country from the national down to the school levels. There cannot be credible data at the national level without proper school record keeping norms and practices at the school level. This link was observed to have been well established to eliminate or minimise exaggerations on the part of school heads.
Below is the summary of obtained information against each of the planned study points:
Study point Remarks
1) Technical details
The application used in the data collection. 1.Developed in-house with local expertise.
2.Multi-year in nature.
3.Mapping technology applied to keep track
of movement of teachers.
4.Mapping can be used to handle the problems
associated with the creation of new districts.
The backend database used (i.e. whether MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle etc)
The backend of the database was developed in Oracle and the frontend in Power Builder.
Hardware requirements There was a visit to one of the BRC’s where
the team had the opportunity to observe the set up for data entry with all the modern ICT facilities.
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at the national level (university professors/statisticians/computer programmers).
2.BRC/CRS’s are manned by MIS
Coordinators (Computer Programmers/Operators).
Mode of data collection (Manual/Online) 1.Printed questionnaires with all the details of
the schools except enrolment are sent from national to all schools.
2.Head teachers fill the questionnaires and
forward to CRC for consistency checks
3.Checked questionnaire are passed on to
BRC for data entry.
4.Keyed data uploaded to DISE level for
report generation.
5.DISE then upload to State/National for
aggregate reporting.
6.Dashboards are used to ensure data integrity
and consistency.
Data entry observation Due to the time of the visit, the team was
unable to observe data entry as the cycle for the exercise had already ended for the year.
Reporting Module(s) associated with the data 1. Reporting modules are part of the
application.
2.Meet all the needs of stakeholders.
3.Comparative/Single year analysis is done
with Row-up/Drill-down reporting technology.
The scripting language used in designing the interface (i.e. either PHP, ASP.NET, Java etc.)
1.The discussion centred on Power Builder
rather than PHP, ASP.NET and Java.
2.A copy given to the Programmers for study.
2) Process of data collection/ dissemination Outline of the whole data collection/ dissemination process
1.At NUEPA, dissemination is considered one
of the vital pillars of the EMIS process.
2.Two day nationwide broadcast is organise
every year on the 13/14 of September to allow stakeholders/users/head teachers to interact via satellite broadcasting on all spectrum of the data collection
exercise/reports.
3.Nation-wide announcement on the census
date every year.
Identified challenges of the process 1.Head teachers do make mistakes at the
school levels.
2.Piloted on-line data entry but had to
abandon the idea. Collaboration with private school/institutions
regarding the annual schools census
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Future roadmaps 1. Not ready to do on-line data entry.
2. Developing a database to capture pupils’
identification numbers.
3. NUEPA ready to collaborate and share
experiences with EMIS, Ghana
10. Recommendation:
Based on the discussions so far, it is imperative to state that most of the initiatives or concepts under review are not very new to the group from Ghana. Some of the initiatives I should say have ever been implemented but have not been institutionalised. Others have been ignored either due to inadequacy of funds or simply due to lack of time. The combined effects of the above are the visible gaps that have been exposed by the study tour. The following under listed issues will have to be considered for immediate attention.
1. The first and foremost is the UIS application software that have been customised for Ghana. From all intent and purposes, the application may not need to be changed since it has served and continue to serve the needs of the EMIS activities. However, till date it cannot be said to have been owned by the local experts. There is no available documentation giving guidelines to its design in English. Besides, skills and knowledge in the EMIS team to undertake modifications from time to time to meet current needs of stakeholders and users alike is not available. The EMIS software at the headquarters does not also have reporting features/modules though the software to add reporting modules to the application in districts were developed and distributed with the support of JICA. There is therefore the urgent need to vigorously train the System Administrators/Programmers in-charge so as to be able to fill the gap by developing a new EMIS application in the shortest possible time.
2. Post census validation survey was conducted by the EMIS unit during the 2011/2012 academic year but has not been done in 2012/2013. Looking at what pertained in India, it would be desirable to institutionalise its conduct effective 2013/2014 and ensure that it is carried out by institutions/agencies not related to EMIS activities in any way.
3. Looking at the Indian experience, it will be more convenient and time saving to pre-print teacher details for the school to edit at least at the senior high schools level.
4. Perhaps, online data entry implementation can also be envisaged within the above sector with proper roadmap. The Indian experience is to serve as a guide to avoid failure.
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computer skills. Data entry clerks with computer skills should also be engaged at all levels of EMIS.
6. As earlier indicated, good record keeping at the school level invariably reflects on the quality and credibility of data churned out by EMIS at the national level. However, this correlation has been overlooked over the years. The time is up for EMIS to initiate pragmatic training modules to ensure that heads of our educational institutions are trained in school record management. The most practical way is to collaborate with the Ghana Education Service (GES) since the schools directly fall under them.
7. Private schools’ participation in the annual schools census of EMIS over the years has been one of major concern. Till date majority of the district education directorates are not in a position to tell the number of private schools under their jurisdiction. The problem gets compounded as one move to municipal/metropolitan areas. Considering the Indian experience in that regard it is expected that there will be strict adherence to GES’ guidelines regarding the establishment of private schools in the country so as to ensure that sanity prevails. There must also be policy guidelines which will as a matter of fact empower district directors of education to be able to close down defaulting private schools without hesitation.
8. Over the years, it has been extremely difficult tracking pupils movement as they climb the educational ladder from grade one upwards. It can be observed that the numbers reduce as pupils move from lower grades to higher ones but then there is no empirical evidence pointing at what occasions the reduction in the numbers occurred. To be able to arrest the above phenomenon, it is believed that it is about time EMIS devised pupils identification codes for all pupils admitted to grade one across the country. The said number may have to take cognisance of the region, district, and type of school and so on and may have to be used till the child finishes at least basic and secondary levels of education. With such a database in place, it may not be difficult to detect those dropping out of the system.
9. Dwindling government financial commitment to the EMIS unit may negatively impact on the sustainability of the annual schools census programme in the future. To mitigate its long term effect, it will be prudent to empower districts to be able to print questionnaires for their own schools. Alternatively, allowances paid to field staff engaged on the exercise may have to be stopped. Perhaps what is practicable is for the district directorates to incorporate such bills into their annual budgets.
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schedule. It is expected that the unit will design detailed capacity building programme (Statistical analysis/Application development) for its members both within and outside the country with scholarship packages.
Below is the summary of recommended actions with their timeframe and expected costs.
S/N Action Duration Timeframe Expected Cost
(GH ₵)
1. Identification of redundant
tables in the database
2 Weeks 16th to 30th September,
2013 500.00
2. Migration of the database from
SQL server 2000 to 2008 3 Months
1st October to 31st
December, 2013
5,000.00
3. Review of questionnaires 2 Months 1st November to 31st
December 300.00
4. Redesign frontend of the
application/Reporting modules
6 Months 1st January to 30th June ,
2014 30,000.00
5. Testing of the application 2 Weeks 1st to 15th July, 2014
6. Printing of questionnaires with
some static details of the schools
10 Weeks 16th September to 30th
November, 2013
52,000.00
7. Post census validation survey 2 Months 1st March to 30th April,
2014 3,500.00
8. Liaise with the GES to ensure
the deployment of qualified staff to the districts
2 Years
1st September, 2013 to 1st
September, 2015
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9. 1. Engage the GES to roll out
piloted Schools Record Management System (SRM)
2. Introduction of students’ identification with proper coding system
2 year 1st January, 2014 to 31st
December, 2015
120,000.00
10. 1. Collaborate with the
GES to ensure that existing policy guidelines regarding opening/closing of schools are adhered to.
2. Sanction defaulting
schools who fail to participate in the annual schools census (ASC) by EMIS.
2 Years
1 Month
1st September, 2013 to 1st September, 2015
1st to 30th June, 2014
-
-
11. Nationwide sensitisation of the
2013/2014 ASC.
1. Radio/TV
announcement
2. TV Morning Show
1 day
1 day
30th November, 2013
16th December, 2013
1,500.00
14 11. Conclusion:
From the discussions so far there is no doubt that the study tour had been very successful irrespective of the limited number of days involved. Set objective(s) of the tour have in our opinion been achieved as members of the group are now in a position to point out what the strengths and weaknesses (if any) of EMIS in both countries are.
Undoubtedly, the Indian EMIS is some steps ahead of that of Ghana specifically regarding technology, structure, capacity of personnel at the decentralised levels. Of course the above is not to suggest that what is in place in Ghana is not up to the required standard. In fact it is one of the best in the sub-region. That notwithstanding, we sincerely reckon that there is more room for improvement over the current situation. Thus experiences/recommendations emanating from the study tour come in handy and cannot be ignored.
As earlier indicated this is the first time a tour of that nature had been organised for members of the EMIS team since its inception. We have seen and vividly experienced what NUEPA has to offer. It will be very interesting looking at other equally good systems around us be it in and outside Africa. For Ghana cannot afford to be left behind in this global world.
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BED Basic Education Division BRC Block Resource Centre CRC Cluster Resource Centre
DISE District Information System for Education EMIS Education Management Information System GES Ghana Education Service
JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency MIS Management Information System
