Ronald Leonard Egesa

1 Information System and Computer Technologies

1.1 Introduction:

The term Information system refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization’s manual and automated processes. Information systems are widely used in the form of computer based information systems and spatial based information systems such as Geographical/Land/Disaster information systems. For the purpose of this presentation, we shall restrict ourselves to computer based information systems and computer technologies for improved service delivery in secondary schools in Uganda.

1.2 Scope:

Information systems and computer technologies can be used to deliver services in secondary schools to both the student and teacher populations. The teachers definitely need more efficient, computer based ways to managing records, assessing students and carry out evaluation and communicate its results to the stakeholders. The student population on the other hand needs more efficient, exciting, and interactive computer based ways of accessing educational content and interacting with teachers. We are going to explore the two requirements, see what is in place and the way forward.

2 MANAGEMENT

2.1 ADMINISTRATION:

The administration of secondary education in Uganda has in the past been faced with a number of challenges and this continues to cause a number of challenges as evidenced by the cases of students striking and citing poor administration. In many of such cases; there is always a communication barrier between the school headteacher and/or Board of Governors and the other stakeholders who are the parents.

One way of avoiding such communication breakdowns is by adopting information systems in the form of Management information systems that will assist in faster access of information by the head teacher whenever he/she needs it and also help him/her in getting that information to the other stakeholders.
There are a number of software companies that have developed finance management systems for schools. These include Magezi Finpro – a web based finance management and accounting system.

The adoption of such a system make it possible for the school head to access key financial statements any time and be in the know of the financial status of the school, thus plan effectively.
Some of these web based system have the ability to allow the school capture the email and mobile telephone details of the parents. With the email of the parents on the system database, it becomes possible to always communicate aspects relating to student financial status, student conduct and health at school by way of email message or sms. This leads us to another computer technology that schools will need to embrace –the internet. The internet is a powerful communication tool that the school can use to effectively communicate to the stakeholders and improve on service delivery.

With the recent developments in the ICT sector in this country including but not limited to the coming of the optic fibre infrastructure and faster and cheaper internet, more parents will harness the power of the internet as a communication tool, it will therefore imply that schools that have deployed web based Management information systems will have an edge in service delivery and client satisfaction over the others.

2.2 EVALUATION

According to the curriculum in Uganda and world over, one of a teacher’s core activities is evaluation. Teachers often spend valuable time carrying out computations in order to derive meaningful evaluation of the students. The computations and summarizing of vital performance related data of students can be done using computer technologies –this calls for the adoption of Academic Records Management systems such as ARMS from Makerere University Faculty of Technology, Magezi Harvest developed by Magezi Solutions, School Management Information System (SMIS) developed by Kampala Computer center among others. For instance the Magezi Harvest system performs all the computations, provides flexibility on grading systems, can be integrated with finance systems, provides statistics and graphs for performance analysis, generates the transcripts/reports, marksheets among others that help teachers in making better evaluation and improve on service delivered to students.

2.3 INNOVATIVE LEARNING METHODS

With the number of computer in Ugandan secondary schools increasing and the student to computer ration drooping, there is always going to be an opportunity to come up with more innovative computer based learning methods. Learning material can be available to students by way of:
• Multimedia CDs
• Browser based resources browsed off local content servers at school
• Downloadable Material from the internet.
• Internet portals operating like social networking sites for students and teachers alike.