Teachers across Maldives archipelago can soon update class attendances using their smartphone or tablets linked directly to the government’s integrated school management portal called ‘eSchool System.
Launched on March 25 by the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) in Maldives, the eSchool project is meant to aid decision making in the Education Ministry by enhancing the collection of school data.
Developed in collaboration with the ministry, eSchool allows teachers to update class attendances via laptops or mobile devices, and generate enrolment and institutional reports for schools and the ministry. This will help the government and schools collect higher quality real-time data, conduct research, and make better strategic decisions.
“In the past, a number of systems with varying complexity have been used by the government to collect education sector data, but none of these systems really worked, as data collection was often secondary in the schools although data need was primary for government,” noted NCIT CIO Mohamed Shareef. “So we re-engineered and automated the data generating processes, so that data could be created in the system as opposed to always being entered at a later stage into the system, starting with the most basic educational data, the class attendance records.”
With over 200 schools located across nearly 200 islands and spread over a distance of 90,000 square kilometres of ocean, the one of the biggest challenges in developing education was managing student relocations to different schools across the disperse archipelago. Maldives provides universal primary education on all inhabited islands. However, students relocate to the bigger islands where they often have access to better secondary and tertiary education.
“The school population in Maldives can be quite dynamic. Students may register at one school in islands, then switch to another in another island making registrations difficult to track,” he explained. This was a key reason the NCIT developed the eSchool system, starting with the basic student population statistic. “This attendance information is the key,” he pointed out.
“With the eSchool System, we now have a system where teachers can mark their students’ class attendance with a laptop or tablet,” he said. He observed that the Education Ministry can also monitor the statistics in real time as the information is updated instantly when student attendance is marked in the system.
Moving forward, the NCIT, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, intends to build a platform that will evolve into a comprehensive school management system. The NCIT is also seeking to integrate performance management into the existing system, he added.
Commenting on the project, Shareef noted the primary objective of the e-School System was not the collection of data but insights on the state of education in the archipelago. The idea is to move away from data collection and provide a tool for teachers and educators in the schools to use, which in turn kept the decision makers and stakeholders in the education sector updated with live information necessary for the sustainable development of education in the country.
Two additional e-services were also announced on the same day as part of NCIT’s 10th anniversary; eCounter, a virtual service counter for online application submission, and the Online Vehicle Domain Bidding service to enable citizens to bid online for vehicle domains.
Launched on March 25 by the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) in Maldives, the eSchool project is meant to aid decision making in the Education Ministry by enhancing the collection of school data.
Developed in collaboration with the ministry, eSchool allows teachers to update class attendances via laptops or mobile devices, and generate enrolment and institutional reports for schools and the ministry. This will help the government and schools collect higher quality real-time data, conduct research, and make better strategic decisions.
“In the past, a number of systems with varying complexity have been used by the government to collect education sector data, but none of these systems really worked, as data collection was often secondary in the schools although data need was primary for government,” noted NCIT CIO Mohamed Shareef. “So we re-engineered and automated the data generating processes, so that data could be created in the system as opposed to always being entered at a later stage into the system, starting with the most basic educational data, the class attendance records.”
With over 200 schools located across nearly 200 islands and spread over a distance of 90,000 square kilometres of ocean, the one of the biggest challenges in developing education was managing student relocations to different schools across the disperse archipelago. Maldives provides universal primary education on all inhabited islands. However, students relocate to the bigger islands where they often have access to better secondary and tertiary education.
“The school population in Maldives can be quite dynamic. Students may register at one school in islands, then switch to another in another island making registrations difficult to track,” he explained. This was a key reason the NCIT developed the eSchool system, starting with the basic student population statistic. “This attendance information is the key,” he pointed out.
“With the eSchool System, we now have a system where teachers can mark their students’ class attendance with a laptop or tablet,” he said. He observed that the Education Ministry can also monitor the statistics in real time as the information is updated instantly when student attendance is marked in the system.
Moving forward, the NCIT, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, intends to build a platform that will evolve into a comprehensive school management system. The NCIT is also seeking to integrate performance management into the existing system, he added.
Commenting on the project, Shareef noted the primary objective of the e-School System was not the collection of data but insights on the state of education in the archipelago. The idea is to move away from data collection and provide a tool for teachers and educators in the schools to use, which in turn kept the decision makers and stakeholders in the education sector updated with live information necessary for the sustainable development of education in the country.
Two additional e-services were also announced on the same day as part of NCIT’s 10th anniversary; eCounter, a virtual service counter for online application submission, and the Online Vehicle Domain Bidding service to enable citizens to bid online for vehicle domains.
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