The Uganda National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), has launched Shs1.1billion (US$30,000), integrated management information system (IMIS), peddled at addressing data collection, verification and dissemination of information for various institutions of learning.
The IMIS has been launched by the State Minister for Higher Education, Chrysostom Muyingo, at NCHE headquarters, Kyambogo, witnessed by various heads universities and tertiary institutions.
Alluding to minister, the designing of the website, computers and data servers have been executed on Shs1.1 billion grant from African development bank (ADB) and support from the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES).
Remarking at the launch, the Minister, said the IMIS will advance higher learning institutions since all Universities are connected to the web portal and data will be incorporated and accessible to all higher learning institutions.
“The introduction of this system is a major land mark and timely signal where technology is taking on traditional or rudimentary modes of doing work. Currently, 77 per cent of the total population of people are under the age of 30 years, therefore embracing technology among them will result into good quality education ahead of the fourth industrial revolution,” he said.
“The system will address issues of data collection, save time and improve the quality of education. With this system, students, lecturers and other people will be required to login in and access all collected and uploaded information for their research and course works.” He said
He implored institutions all of learning to embrace the system and divert away from the manual ways of executing work integrate to information and communication technology (ICT). Muyingo applauded the council for being innovative adding that the new system will go a long way to transform the way NCHE serves the country.
The executing secretary of NCHE, Prof. Mary Okwakol said the system will easy their monitory role and render a hand in accessing of institutions since staff members will not be required to travel for information about a given learning institution.
“The system will be reliable and has a backup battery of more than 30 days. Data will also be connected to the National Information Technology Authority of Uganda (NITA-U) for backup and data recovery,” she said.
Prof. Okwakol said they are yet to carry out a survey ahead of the introduction of visual learning methods at all Universities and tertiary intuitions since many prefer that mode of studying. Currently only Isbat is the university offering visual studies in Uganda.
