NEMIS Is Here To Stay, Says CS George Magoha

The ministry of education has said the digital registration process, better known as the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS) will continue to be used for learners and school data.

Clarification that the Ministry has not abandoned NEMIS came after it was reported on Monday, 16^th December 2019, that the Ministry had let go of the NEMIS system of the registration process that was introduced three years ago.

A section of the media had reported that the Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof. George Magoha had instructed County Directors of education to collect manual data from all learners and schools in their respective counties.

It was reported that the Ministry of education issued a circular on 10^th December, warning the county directors of education to provide the ministry with the information that was to be used for capitation in the 2020 or be held accountable for lack of the same.

According to what the media reported a few days earlier, there were claims that NEMIS, which was introduced as the most reliable tool for establishing learners’ numbers and details was not working as expected.

Students registered under NEMIS would be provided with unique identification numbers and schools under the program would be allocated funds.

Earlier reports had indicated that only 50 percent of the students had their details captured in the system, which allegedly was the reason the Ministry of Education was abandoning it.

The news brought about confusion and fear that the government had resorted to the older method of collecting data manually, abandoning the system it had introduced as the ‘truth-meter’.

Prof. Magoha, however, dismissed claims that his ministry was abandoning NEMIS for the manual process, saying that the digital registration, NEMIS, was here to stay.

The CS clarified that the decision to collect data manually for verification was a way of strengthening the system, adding that it was part of good corporate governance.

It is through the registration of learners and schools by NEMIS that the government is able to allocate funds and other learning requirements to schools.

However, out of the estimated 13 million learners in the country, only six million of them have been able to be captured in the primary school register, mostly owing to the fact that a child’s birth certificate was an essential requirement.

The Ministry of Education relaxed the requirements by eliminating birth certificates and adopting the use of admission numbers for primary school learners.

For learners joining Form One in 2020, secondary school principals will use the students’ index numbers to admit them to form one.