Educational Management Information System in Nigeria: Challenges and the Way Forward

Educational Management Information System (EMIS) is an education database that aims at ensuring timely, accurate and appropriate education data and information for decision making. It is a global concept for educational management that encompasses the application of modern information and communication technology in collection, collation, storage and analysis of education data. The government has a clear understanding of what role EMIS plays in future planning activities, both at the federal and state levels. Despite the good intention of government, it is difficult to establish accurate quantitative targets for future plans due to lack of adequate base-line information. This paper discussed the challenges of Educational Management Information System (EMIS) in Nigeria and the way forward. It was found out these challenges include inadequate funding, inability to integrate data and data systems, inadequate development of skills in data use at all levels, inability to capture expenditure and budget data in EMIS and inability to develop student-record based EMIS. Therefore, it was recommended that adequate funding should be provided for EMIS development, data should be integrated into the data system, skills in data use should be developed at all levels, budget data and capturing of expenditure should be encouraged, and finally, student-record based for EMIS should be developed.