The challenges encountered while developing and implementing education management information system

  

Date Posted: 12/9/2012 1:58:36 PM

Posted By: vann  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 1015

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Education Management Information System (EMIS) may be defined as a system for collection, integration, processing, maintenance, dissemination of data and information to support planning, monitoring and management at all levels of education system. EMIS has numerous benefits in an education system.

One of the biggest challenges is lack of awareness and negative attitude towards EMIS. As already stated, EMIS is a relatively new concept to many Kenyans, particularly those living in remote rural areas and in poor urban slums where this technology has not fully penetrated. Many of these individuals do not fully understand the benefits and the potential of EMIS. Some of these individuals perceive this new technology as simply advanced technologies that require a lot of resources and very advanced skills. Such perceptions make these people fail to appreciate EMIS as a means of creating efficiency and cost effective.

Lack of awareness goes together with the attitude, for example in Kenya when teachers hear of introduction of e-learning it generated a lot of debate thinking that computer was coming to replace teachers from classrooms hence rendering them to be jobless. To overcome this, all the stakeholders must be involved from the initial stage to the implementation stage. Courses and visits to successful programs need to be planned for to create exposure and build positive attitudes to all the stake holders.

Lack of administration support is a big challenge: Administrators are key to success of any project. They allocate necessary resources, develop & implement policy and give necessary support to projects. In Kenya, some of the top administrators lack adequate ICT skills and suffer from technophobia. They want status quo to remain and do very little with technology. With such category of administrators, development and implementation of EMIS becomes very challenging. This can only be achieved through offering special courses

to administrators such as school heads, school members of Board of Governors, heads of departments among others.

Lack of technical support: technicians with full understanding of school environment, education special needs, are very few or even not there in some cases. That means issues like installation, operation, maintenance, network administration and security, calls for the administrators to look for experts outside the education field. That means simple technical support is lacking in schools, because some schools completely lack a teacher, student or even workers who process simple computer application skills. In such an environment, development and EMIS implementation is a big challenge which to overcome planners should either train a few of their staff or strategize to recruit technicians as they implement the project.

Staff development: Proper planning, developing a good EMIS project and acquiring hardware and the software will have very little impact in an environment where member of staff cannot use the new technology. For example in 2003, a school in Meru where I was a teacher got 20 brand new computers from a donor and in that school not even a single member of staff was computer literate. The computers remained in a store while teachers manually as they were used to doing, nobody bothered to use the machines leave alone training the students. Lack of ownership: Many EMIS projects fail survive because the stakeholders fail to own the policy and projects. The employees should view EMIS as a tool to improve efficiency and not a competitor as stated earlier, where teachers in Kenya viewed e-learning as a competitor to inject them outside the class and deny them employment or view a project as a donors business which does not concern an of them.

Lack of adequate resources: Kenya just like other developing countries face a big challenge of in adequate resources which is as a result of inflation and high levels of poverty. Many institutions willing to develop or implement EMIS lack adequate resources to buy all the input required, software and train personnel. This has continually seen many institutions that have implemented EMIS experience high computer: student ratio and lack of proper maintenance mechanism, for example simple repairs, buy of antivirus, paying of internet services etc. This can be solved by the administrators prioritizing EMIS as a project and involving donors.

Emphasis on technical skills: Many planners more often than not emphasize on technology itself placing little emphasis on practical application of EMIS skills in day to day operations in the school. For example schools should automate aspects such as financial management, students records, integrate ICT in the curriculum delivery among other aspects that will make learning institutions meet broad educational objectives. The broad approach gives students & teachers opportunity to enjoy the full potential of technology.

The pace of technological innovation: The other very big challenge in developing & implementing EMIS in Kenya is that technological innovation outruns the pace of institutional innovations. If planners don’t think and act at the speed of the technological divide, they are likely to be always left behind the technology. For instance, teachers who only know how to use Dos, Diskettes in storing data, when not exposed to technology, they are likely to be technologically obsolete. A school may buy a machine but if it delays to install the software, with time, the software is likely to be outdated.

Cost of computer items, software and broadband: Initial deployment of ICT hardware and software, sustenance over time is also a challenge to many administrators in education institutions because of the high cost involved. The government of Kenya has given incentives to educational institutions because importing computer equipment taxes have been zero rated. However, the cost still remains high to many Kenyans because of the poverty levels and inflation rates in the country. The exchange rate has always been unpredictable hence purchasing imported equipment still expensive of since many of computer Inputs are not manufactured locally.

Finally monitoring and evaluation is challenge because data on nature and extent of level of EMIS implementation remains limited in most places because of lack of monitoring & evaluation tools and methodology dealing with ICT.

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