UNESCO IITE in collaboration with UNESCO HQ organised a five-day EMIS technical support meeting with Government officials from 11-15 February 2019 in St Port Louis, Mauritius. Within the framework of OpenEMIS, the goal is to strengthen the national education authorities on the management of information system and contribute to developing their human resource, infrastructure, and institutional capacities for monitoring progress in Education 2030 Agenda. The UNESCO technical support was led by Mr Charles Obiero, Ms Yano Satoko, Ms Sara Bin Mahfooz and Mr Kennedy Chongwo. The objective was to undertake a comprehensive EMIS needs assessment and design a school integrated management information system (SIMIS).
The technical team met the Hon. Minister Leela Devi Dookun Luchoomun, Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research and the Permanent Secretary Mr G. Gukhool. The Minister lauded UNESCO for the timely support of assessing the EMIS requirements for real-time and quality education data management. In particular, the Government of Mauritius has placed all primary schools with high-speed internet connectivity and by 2020, all secondary schools. A robust Education Management Information System (EMIS) is to eliminate data duplication and improve on data sharing for better planning and management of the education sector and to support tracking of SDG 4 targets. The Minister called for the team to expand the EMIS needs assessment to cover the TVET and Tertiary education sectors. The EMIS needs assessment and design reports are to facilitate resource requirements inclusion in the 2019/2020 Financial Year budget for the establishment of EMIS.
The Ministry officials were presented with practical examples of UNESCO experience in EMIS that ranged from OpenEMIS in Jordan, SIMIS in Syria and EMIS systems of Maldives and Bahamas. Under the coordination of Mr Ricaud Auckbur, Director of E-Education, several other meetings were held with ten Directorates at the national level and one with education officials at the Education Administrative Zone. In these meetings, priorities and challenges in education data management and dissemination were discussed. Further meetings were held in one primary and secondary schools on work procedures for automation to achieve real-time data and effective education service delivery. The information captured at national, zone and school level covered student and teacher profiles, teacher management, infrastructure, finances, and classroom assessment among others. In addition, meetings were held with Mauritius Institute of Education for training of teachers and education officials and Mauritius Examination Syndicate, for national and classroom assessment procedures.
On the last day, initial findings from the Mauritius EMIS needs assessment and next steps were presented. A key point is entire education sector to be digitalised (pre-primary, primary, secondary, TVET and Tertiary) as part of new education reform for quality in education (SDGs, in particular, SDG 4). Mauritius is to incorporate individual student progress tracking system, including classroom assessment. It was resolved the development of EMIS to be in three phases: immediate, medium and long-term plan. The immediate plan is 3 months, to finalise EMIS technical document for resource mobilization. The medium-term plan is 12 months for EMIS development and customization, and the long-term plan is beyond 12 months for EMIS capacity development. Capacity development for Ministry staff and educators includes integrating EMIS training in Mauritius Education Institute and IT infrastructure development in all education institutions. UNESCO IITE is to provide follow up support and capacity building, including online courses for EMIS IT administrators and super users at national, zone and school levels.