Having spent the last several years building knowledge on EMIS generally, gaining experience with OpenEMIS and undertaking the Professional and Administrator training courses, Ministry counterparts are now able to confidently manage the OpenEMIS environment and have developed the necessary capacity to facilitate the access and dissemination of education data nationwide.
Reflecting on her experience at the closing ceremony of the trainings, Dr. Neulin Villanueva, the Deputy Chief Education Officer in Belize, noted that “The MoEYSC understands how important OpenEMIS is, not just for Belize, but for all of the countries that are coming onboard.”
Elaborating on this point, Dr. Villanueva stated that “OpenEMIS allows the Ministry to be targeted in our responses.” She emphasized that prior to the system, policymakers in Belize could “see the number of dropouts and repetitions, but were not able to see the story and really trace what happens to individual children.”
Through dashboards that display real-time and accurate data, Dr. Villanueva believes that all Ministries using OpenEMIS, including the MoEYSC in Belize, can create more focused and targeted interventions in the education sector.
The Advanced Lab Trainings also covered a breadth of OpenEMIS tools including OpenEMIS Core, Classroom, Dashboard, Data Manager, Data Warehouse, Integrator, Profiles, Survey and Staffroom.
As the Belize Advanced Lab Trainings came to a close, and as participants were presented with their certificates of completion, Dr. Villanueva ended her speech by noting that there are “Limitless possibilities with OpenEMIS” and that “All other countries are going to benefit from it.”