News

UNESCO & GPE Launch First International Conference on Education Management Information Systems

23-Apr-2018

PARIS - UNESCO and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) joined forces to support countries maximize Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) towards achieving the Education 2030 Agenda.

According to the UNESCO, the International Conference on EMIS held at UNESCO Headquarters from 11-13 April 2018 brought together over 20 Member States with education actors across all sectors – national governments, nonprofits, private companies, and international organizations interested in EMIS – to discuss challenges, lessons learned, and ways through which development partners can better collaborate with countries to address EMIS-related needs. A survey conducted for this conference revealed that the most pressing needs were: building human resource and institutional capacities, developing technical infrastructure, forming and coordinating partnerships.

The Conference focused on the importance of EMIS in improving the delivery of quality education and lifelong learning for all. It also discussed the importance of data collection to monitoring progress toward SDG-4, as well as the various challenges faced by countries in collecting EMIS data. The Conference also tackled the need to make data more inclusive, particularly to ensure the representation of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

“It is no longer a question of whether or not EMIS is worth the investment. The question that countries are now asking is: what kinds of investments should be made to maximize the potential of EMIS”, said David Atchoarena, Director of Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems at UNESCO.  
The Conference provided a major peer-learning opportunity: countries were able to share the challenges and benefits of implementing an EMIS. In addition, it provided a platform for countries to share innovations and lessons learned, at both the strategic and the operational levels.

Development partners, including UNICEF, GPE, ECW, AFD, ADEA, AU and the World Bank, also shared their most recent work to reinforce capacities in this area, focusing on the technical guidance they have been providing towards helping countries strengthen and institutionalize EMIS.

“UNESCO leverages on the different areas of expertise and competence of various development partners… SDG-4 poses more complex data demands, and effective collaboration across borders, across agencies, and across sectors is needed to meet those demands,” said Francesc Pedró, Chief of UNESCO’s Education Policy Section in his concluding remarks.

The background documents, including case studies, and presentations are available on the website. A final publication summarizing the discussions and outcomes of the conference will be released in September 2018.