The government has made real its threat of closing the online learner registration platform popularly known as NEMIS (National Education Management Information System). Just two days ago the director in charge of Special Needs Education in the ministry of education, Maria Cherono, said pupils and students in primary and secondary schools must be registered by March 30th.
Speaking in Kigumo, Cherono said the data is required to help the government to plan for allocation of funds in the sector. She said the registration was pushed from February to give parents enough time to acquire birth certificates which are required for the process.
Though a random check by Teachers Arena has shown many schools to be far away from completing the exercise. Many teachers we interviewed complained of a short period given by the ministry as well as a system that was slow in taking data.
“The period given is not enough, first we have to get a birth certificate from the learner before we can upload the data and this is what has caused huge problem as the offices that offer the document are not able to handle the big number of people turning for the document and this has delayed our work,” said one of the headteachers.
But at the same time we were able to find out that some schools were way too far as they had already registered their institutions and staff as well as a big number of learners.