Our motto – Better Data for Better Schools – highlights the need for quality education data.

OpenEMIS Belize helps the Ministry of Education provide equitable access to a high-quality education, with data management tools that improve institutional efficiency and enhance the Ministry’s capacity to monitor progress.

The policy objectives of Belize’s Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture (MoEYSC) are to increase equitable access to all levels of education for all children; to improve the quality and relevance of education at all levels for all children (with an emphasis on those with special education needs), and to strengthen governance throughout the sector with an emphasis on student achievement.

These objectives, under the motto “Better Data for Better Schools”, highlight the need for quality education data. Since it was deployed in 2014, OpenEMIS has helped the MoEYSC collect and manage relevant and timely data, to support planning that is increasingly based on evidence. Launched in 615 schools and covering 106,000 student, OpenEMIS allows principals across the country to create student and teacher profiles, organize classes, manage staff, and most recently to complete the Ministry’s annual education survey.

OpenEMIS – a generic and open source Education Management Information System available to all UNESCO member countries, which is used to collect and report data on schools, students, teachers and staff – is being implemented in Belize by the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and UNESCO.

The Deputy Chief Education Officer in the Policy, Planning, Research and Evaluation Unit of the Ministry of Education, confirmed that the plan is to have the systems in place in the coming months, so that schools could begin to directly input student information.  He told us that during the months of May and June 2015, education officials visited schools across the country to collect student-level data, such as the names of students, the names of their parents, their address and other background information.

Educators will be able to view online personal profiles, skills profiles, work history, classes, leave requests, training requests and more; while students and families will be able to view a personal profile listing attendance, behavior, class results, and national examinations results. The plan calls for the customization of the system to meet Belize’s needs between January and September 2015, and the distribution of computers to every school between September and December 2015.