Still old school - Ministry of Education far from being modernised
Published:Sunday | August 28, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter
More than a decade into the 21st century, a sizeable portion of the education ministry's operations and interactions with schools has not been computerised.
In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner on Friday evening, Grace McLean, chief education officer (CEO) in the education ministry, pointed out that more than 300 of the nation's primary schools still do not have access to the Internet.
McLean also noted that faculty members and students at some high schools are also not able to surf the World Wide Web.
According to the CEO, the operations at the ministry's Heroes Circle headquarters are not centred on pushing paper around, but "getting information electronically from all our schools is an issue".
Fairly modern operation
Colin Blair, the education ministry's director of communications, said the ministry's operation was fairly modern but needs some tweaking. "It is very modern in some respects, but, of course, we lag in certain areas. That we are trying to fix," he said.
Jean Hastings, director of the Education System Transformation Programme, said the country's education demands have mushroomed phenomenally and much faster than the ministry has been able to respond to. However, she was adamant that the ministry had not been sitting on its hands.
Hastings revealed that the ministry was about to go tender for an education management information system (EMIS).
"A lot of what we do now is actually manual or paper-based because we do not yet have an EMIS … but we are working towards having that, and we do have elements of it," she said.
Hastings highlighted that the ministry had already acquired databases for the management of infrastructure and documentation. The next big item on the ministry's shopping list is a school-management system, which will have to be hosted.
"What will it do when we have the EMIS in place? It means that we will be able to, almost at the touch of a button, get information that can inform decision-making. That will lead to greater levels of efficiency, but we are not there yet."
Potential impact unclear
With Finance Minister Audley Shaw set to announce austerity measures in a little while, it is unclear how the announcements of cuts in expenditure will impact on the ministry's move towards modernisation.
McLean said that the national school registration system currently being implemented was a groundbreaking element in the push to modernise the ministry's operations.
By the end of September, information on all students from grade one to grade seven should be in the computerised system. In the next four months, information on the thousands of students in grades nine and 10 should be added to the system.
According to McLean, information on all students in primary and secondary schools should be in the system for the start of the 2012 academic year.