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EMIS: How Kano Is Blazing The Trail By Hassan S. Indabawa
Kano – Nigeria.
Two ladies and a gentleman, on April 13, 2006, walked into the offices of Kano State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) to meet with officials of the Board and those of Kano’s Educational Management Information System (EMIS), a baby of the board.
The threesome made a team of educationist who had traveled from Lagos to Kano to study the operational modes of EMIS which Kano state initiated, for possible duplication in Lagos state.
Leader of the team, Mrs. A.O Adelaja, spoke
glowingly about EMIS while addressing the Executive Chairman of SUBEB,
Alhaji Abdullahi Muhammad Dutse. “We are deeply impressed with what we
have seen of EMIS”, she said for herself and others in her team:
Mrs Adejala was hit by the unexpected resourcefulness, so to say, of Kano state and she said so in these words: “The Kano EMIS is very good, a lot of work has been done to set Kano state apart. We have seen a ready-made data base which is very informative and valuable for all stakeholders and the larger society. We’re returning to Lagos with an entirely new idea of what the Northern part of the country could do as exemplified by Kano state. Your masterpiece, EMIS, could soon put the state at the same pedestal with the South, Lagos state inclusive, in terms of developments in the educational sector”.
The Adelaja – led team has returned to Lagos after a two-day study visit to Kano, but those behind EMIS are understandably basking in the euphoria of having succeeded so well in developing an educational blueprint that states in the educationally developed southern Nigeria would wish to copy.
And, it is not just a southern state that is impressed with Kano’s ingenuity. USAID COMPASS, an international development organization is deeply interested; same as United Nations Development Project (UNDP); British Council, Abuja; as well as ENHANCE project, Nigeria. More significant, perhaps is that the Federal Government of Nigeria has also adopted the EMIS project.
What is EMIS, one would ask? Education Management and Information System (EMIS) involves collection of data in decision making. Data collected helps also in planning, monitoring of projects and evaluating development activities. The idea is to make necessary information available to managers and stakeholders at all levels in the education sector so that they can make an informed decision and ease the task of development. More specifically, EMIS improves information flow from the classroom, the schools and the wider education system such as Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs), Zonal offices of education, SUBEB headquarters in Kano, Kano Education Resource Department (KERD), Ministry of Educatoin (MOE), Kano; Universal Basic Education (UBE), Federal Ministry of Education (FME), etc.
In practice, data collected from schools is aggregated along EMIS designed modules into user-friendly framework to develop pupils and teachers and improve infrastructure in schools. Along the way, EMIS has raised awareness of all involved concerning the benefits of education indicators and their application. Indeed, observers agree that the EMIS in Kano SUBEB has a great future because of growing awareness of education planners and implementers on the enormous benefits of necessary information in efforts to provide quality education to the people.
EMIS started in the 2002/2003 school year when United States Agency for International Development (USAID) entered into an agreement with the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) as brokered by Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to build a dependable data base.
To the credit of those involved in the operations of EMIS, particularly its head, Alhaji Jibrin Garba and the unit co-coordinator, Alhaji Aliyu A.M. Indabawa, EMIS has done well within the short time of its establishment. The success of Kano EMIS becomes clear when it is noted that the Executive chairman of SUBEB (from where EMIS emerged), Alhaji Abdullahi Dutse, is a foremost educationist renown for being passionate for educational development. He has happily taken on responsibilities at different levels of education and has stamped his feet on each of such positions of responsibilities.
The EMIS initiative is spreading fast. When Independent Policy Group (IPG) wrote a letter to the Kano SUBEB EMIS November 17, 2005, the group stated that: “…IPG intends to commence a series of consultations with major stakeholders and experts in order to prepare a brief for Mr. President (Obasanjo) on how to increase investment in Basic education, identifying a key role for EMIS as a modality needed to achieve desired goal.
“In recognition of the (Kano) State Ministry of Education’s leadership and coordinating role, and the pivotal path the state Universal Basic Education Board is playing, IPG seeks to collaborate closely with the Ministry and other stakeholders in understudying the existing EMIS project with a view to seeking imput for the policy brief to Mr. President…”
Interest of Federal Ministry of Education in the EMIS strategy dates back along way. This is evident in Educational Data News, a publication of the Education Data bank (EDB) of the Ministry which October 2005 edition is dominated by EMIS – related contents; one which reads: “The Nigerian Education Management Information System (NEMIS) is based on work performed in the states such as Kano. Kano State Ministry of Education/SUBEB has a success story of EMIS development…”
On hand as product of EMIS by the Kano SUBEB is the 2004/2005 session state summary report published in October, 2005, contents of which include tabular and graphic representation of data under different classification. They are summary of report by LGEA, Enrolment by class and gender (state summary), number of teachers by qualification, Teachers by specialization in core subjects, recruitment and training needs on core subjects, percentage of unqualified teachers by LGEA, teachers promotion eligibility by LGEA, pupils furniture needs, text books needs etc.
As a sample of the comprehensive 73-page EMIS report, the summary by Local Government Education shows that of the 44 local government areas of Kano state, the first in alphabetical order, Ajingi, has 80 schools, 12,940 male enrolment and 7,733 female enrolment, making 20,673 total enrolment against 14,183 of previous year (2003/2004). The tabular data also shows that the schools in Ajingi LGEA had 47 qualified teachers, 421 unqualified teachers, 95 non-teaching staff and so on.
A beauty of the EMIS strategy is that a single table which accommodates this bits of information highlighted above and more not mentioned here, as well as the equivalent bit of information on the remaining 43 Local Government Areas is drawn on only two pages, a summary that, if written in sentences and paragraphs, would take several pages and would be boring to read. In other words, the details captured in the 73-page EMIS designed report would most likely take 73 x 5 or more pages of essay type summary presentation and will be far more difficult to grasp than the EMIS model.
More significant, perhaps, is the pains that must have gone into gathering the copious data presented in the 2005 summary report, a mine of information, as you may call the report.
Developers of the Kano EMIS intends that “very soon, all decisions concerning schools, pupils, and general education activities are going to be based on EMIS reports”, a process they believe “will go far in improving primary education in Kano State”. Thus, putting Kano on the same pedestal with Lagos in terms of educational development, as observed by the Adelaja-led team that were specifically sent to understudy the Kano EMIS project, for a probable duplication by their own version of SUBEB.
Indabawa, a public affairs analyst, wrote in from Kano.
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