DHIS2 News: International stakeholders show their support for DHIS2 for Education
All 113 participants at the DHIS2 for Education Academy, including representatives from national Ministries of Education and international education organizations, endorsed a joint communique stating their intent to work collectively to strengthen EMIS systems
In April 2022, the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo, groups from the HISP network, and the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) of The Gambia jointly hosted a weeklong Academy in Banjul on DHIS2 for Education. This event featured presentations by national Ministry of Education (MoE) stakeholders and HISP groups on experiences piloting DHIS2 as an Education Management Information System (EMIS) in 6 countries — The Gambia, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Togo, Mozambique, and Eswatini. Representatives from several regional and international Education-focused organizations and NGOs also shared their experiences and goals.
In addition to technical demonstrations and knowledge sharing, the Academy proved to be a fruitful arena for discussing ways forward to strengthen national EMIS systems to facilitate the provision of quality education data to inform the implementation of education sector plans and meet the needs of SDG 4 and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25). In recognition of the success of DHIS2 in the health sector and the potential opportunity to leverage it within the education sector, all 113 Academy participants collectively drafted and unanimously endorsed a joint communique, where they committed “to make every effort to collectively take forward and facilitate the implementation of the following through our plans and programmes:”
- National EMIS harmonization process
- Capacity building
- Develop and package appropriate messages to put forward the case for using DHIS2 for EMIS
- Addressing the missing data
- Leveraging cross sector linkages
- Strengthen the DHIS2 Academy community of practice and create national communities of practice
Among the partner organizations represented were the Pan-African Institute of Education for Development (AU-IPED), the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), UNESCO country offices (Dakar and The Gambia) and UNICEF headquarters and country offices (The Gambia and Eswatini). Representatives from UATAF Mozambique. Save the Children Uganda and Save the Children Waliku, Catholic Relief Services and PMI/Vectorlink also participated and endorsed the joint statement.
The HISP Centre appreciates this statement of support for DHIS2 for Education. Using DHIS2 as an EMIS presents countries with the opportunity to leverage existing DHIS2 capacity from the health sector to support digitization of education management, and facilitates the triangulation of data between education and health sectors — by combining them into unified DHIS2 dashboards — making it easier to plan and monitor school-based health programs, such as immunization campaigns.
Download the joint communique in English and French, and learn more on the DHIS2 for Education website: https://education.dhis2.org/
