The education management information system of the Free State Department of Education : a systems analysis

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Organizations depend on the availability of reliable and credible information to makeinformed decisions and to plan effectively. The Education Management Information System(EMIS) is used by all provincial education departments including the Free State Departmentof Education for collecting, verifying, analysing, storing and disseminating reliable andcredible data for decision making and planning purposes. Through its efforts to improveinformation management, the Department of Basic Education introduced the South AfricanSchool Administration Management System (SA-SAMS) to improve the management of dataat school level and allow for the uploading of this data onto provincial databases. This studyfocuses on an analysis of the Education Management Information System to determinewhether this information system, utilised by the Free State Department of Education, isreliable and credible or not. In order to answer the research question under study, thedimensions/constructs of information systems success, such as information quality, systemquality, individual and organizational impacts have been used to evaluate the informationsystems under investigation. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and outlines the background andthe accountability chain of the Free State Department of Education. Chapter 2 deals with thetheoretical grounding. It discusses the topic of Information Systems, in particular what thecriteria used to determine the efficiency and reliability of an education management system inthe Free State Province are. Chapter 3 draws on the theoretical base outlined in Chapter 2,focussing on the Free State Province to model the EMIS system and identifying the crucialelements where empirical observations are necessary. In Chapter 3 the focus is on theempirical data collection based on the model as set out in Chapter 4. In this chapter themethodological concerns in respect of the collection of data are dealt with in detail, and thefindings are reported. In Chapter 4 the implications of the findings are weighed up against thecriteria as identified in Chapter 2 and conclusions are drawn on that basis. Lastly Chapter 5,which draws on earlier findings, presents the lessons learnt in doing this research, conclusionsdrawn therefrom, as well as the recommendations presented as a way forward to improve thegaps identified in Free State EMIS. The researcher's informed conclusion is that EMIS,through the use of SA-SAMS, has improved the capturing of data at school level and that thishas contributed to an improvement in the quality of data contained in the provincial database.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University