Meeting Seeks Creation of Network to Ensure Standard Practice of Education Management Information System in West Africa

24 June 2010
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Lome — A meeting to ensure a comprehensive policy on the ECOWAS Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) programme in West Africa has ended with a call for the establishment of a network to facilitate regular exchange of ideas and information and further popularize the practice of EMIS in the region. Participants said the network would help to harmonize the different approaches adopted in Member States as well as ensure the maintenance and sustenance of minimum uniform standards on EMIS. This recommendation is contained in a report released at the end of the meeting on EMIS in Lome, Togo on Friday, 18th June 2010.

The participants also called for the setting up of an ECOWAS EMIS Technical Committee which, in collaboration with the network, will help promote the need for timely and regular publication of statistical yearbooks and the adoption of international standards by ECOWAS Member States on EMIS, among others. While reviewing the practice of EMIS in Member States, the participants urged the EMIS units in Member States to work in close collaboration with such organs as the National Office of Statistics, Ministries of Finance, Human Resources Departments and public service offices, among other actors and stakeholders, in order to ensure the production of regular and more credible data. Another issue of concern noted at the meeting was the high level of illiteracy, gender gaps and little or no funding of non-formal education and data collection in the region.

The participants therefore called on EMIS officials and policy makers to pay more attention to these areas. In addition, the meeting which noted the multiplicity of Ministries of Education in some Member States, agreed that provision should be made in those countries for the appointment of a national coordinator who will be strategically positioned to give a clear picture of EMIS in each of the countries. While reiterating the technical nature of EMIS questionnaires, the meeting recommended that EMIS focal persons in Member States should be empowered to consult with collaborating ministries, departments and agencies to ensure that countries are adequately represented in the questionnaires. In addition, the participants strongly recommended capacity building as a necessary prerequisite for the ECOWAS EMIS process.

They advised that such training sessions be replicated at different levels of education delivery in each Member State. Similarly, they called for the training of experts at both regional and national levels on the monitoring of indicators for the focus areas, noting the poor monitoring of the progress on the ECOWAS priority areas on education. The participants who lamented the low level of funding of the EMIS programme by national governments and their over-dependence on donor funding, reiterated the NEPAD principle that African problems are better solved by Africans themselves. They thus recommended that ECOWAS and civil society organizations in West Africa should embark on advocacy missions with the Ministers of Education and parliamentarians.

A meeting of the focal persons will take place in November 2010 to develop a regional EMIS strategy for ECOWAS, with the assistance of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The participants agreed that the following would be necessary for the strategy: Assessment of the status of EMIS in each Member State to guide the development of a strategy for the region, the development of country priorities as well as the development of a legal framework for the EMIS strategy. EMIS is one of the priority programmes identified for accelerated implementation in the plan of action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa, covering 2006 - 2015. It seeks to provide a timely and informed basis for planning and management of educational services, establish a set of relevant indicators for data collection and utilization as well as establish or contribute to a national system for collection, processing and utilization of educational data.

Operators monitor such indices as adult literacy, youth literacy, primary education, secondary education, human resources, finance, private enrolment and out-of-school children in the implementation of EMIS.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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