EMIS (Education Management Information Systems) Norms and standards Assessment Framework for the SADC Region

Ministries of education in the region face a number of challenges regarding their education statistics. There is a policy and institutional gap in terms of the legal mandate to compel the compliance of education and training institutions in supplying accurate and comprehensive information. There is an information gap in terms of relevant statistics for planning, budgeting and monitoring purposes. It is also evident that there are quality gaps in terms of common standards, including concepts, definitions, and methodologies. A capacity gap in terms of both human resources and infrastructure also exists. In the light of these challenges, the SADC ministers of education in July 2008 directed the SADC Secretariat to develop and harmonize statistical norms and standards for the region in order to address the challenge of benchmarking capacities and evaluating progress toward effective information management systems.
A set of 17 EMIS norms and associated standards was collaboratively developed by member states and adopted by ministers of education at their SADC meeting in Kinshasa, March 2010. Subsequently, SADC with the assistance of ADEA's WG on Education Management and Policy Support (WGEMPS) and SADC's EMIS Technical Committee developed an assessment framework to benchmark member states' performance against the agreed EMIS norms and standards.