| 1. |
The Western Cape Education Department has developed a new Education Management Information System which will inter alia, be able to track the movement of learners and personnel into, within and out of the system and will also contain information on every individual learner and staff member which will be updated on an ongoing basis. This system will initially be applied to all public ordinary and LSEN schools.
|
| 2. |
The roll out of this system will begin in July 2005.
|
| 3. |
The current data gathering process is very cumbersome and time consuming and is subject to all kinds of inaccuracies. The transformation to an electronic system for the gathering of information, will eliminate much of the present tedious, laborious and resource-consuming data-handling tasks at both the school and Head Office level. The introduction of an electronic system will also enhance the benefits and advantages inherent in web-based solutions.
|
| 4. |
Reliable data will also enhance the efficient provisioning of educational resources and personnel to schools and alleviate the administrative burden on schools.
|
| 5. |
Schools and EMDCs will be fully briefed on the nature and operation of the CEMIS during road-shows which will start in July 2005. The WCED has appointed an external service provider consortium, Deloitte and SAB&T, to manage the collection of all learner and staff data. This data will be transferred into the central database. Schools will be introduced to the service provider during these sessions and will also receive the necessary documentation.
|
| 6. |
The individual learner and staff information will be completed on once off census forms which will become the documentary evidence. The collection of this information will be managed by the school and the service provider. An offline software solution will be used to convert this information into electronic format and capturing in the database. All learner and school staff data should be in the central database by October 2005.
|
| 7. |
After the year end promotions all learners will be classified as proceeding to the next grade or remaining in the same grade. The inactive learners of a school (those learners who do not form part of the promotion results) will be removed from the school record. The census is then completed and each learner will be allocated a unique WCED reference number, to be retained until the learner exits the system.
|
| 8. |
From January 2006 onwards any learner movement in the system, will be managed by a system of initial entry forms or transfer forms which will be recorded in the CEMIS.
|
| 9. |
The principal and delegated school administrators will be central to the proper functioning of the CEMIS. It is critical that schools understand and administer the CEMIS process correctly from the start and maintain the system in the prescribed manner.
|
| 10. |
A very comprehensive network of cooperation will have to be maintained between the school administration, the circuit manager and the CEMIS administrators at head office.
|
| 11. |
Roadshow Programme
| No. | Duration | Programme Item | Presenter |
| 1. | 30 min | Registration | Deloitte Admin |
| 2. | 10 min | Welcome and Introductions | EMDC Director |
| 3. | 50 min | Presentation – Need for and nature of the new system | Dir: Educ Res |
| 4. | 30 min | Logistics of data collection | Deloitte |
| 5. | 60 min | Issueing of Packages – information exchange | Deloitte |
| 6. | 20 min | Closure | Circuit man/ICT |
|
| 12. |
We wish to thank all the role players for fulfilling their duties and thereby producing an administrative system to the mutual advantage of all the organs of education.
|
SIGNED: P. PRESENT
HEAD: EDUCATION
DATE: 2005:07:14
|