Teachers in private and public schools are required to register afresh in a new digitized Teacher Management Information System (TMIS) Introduced by the Ministry of Education and Sports.
Even student teachers who are still in primary and National Teachers colleges and universities are all expected to immediately register.
The move is aimed at digitizing the workflow of teachers and instructor management process in recruitment, deployment, transfers, appraisals, appointments, leave entitlements, discipline and payroll verification. The system will also harmonize teacher records management and provide accurate and timely data for proper planning.
The computerized staff management systems can automatically delete one from the payroll, as soon as they clock the retirement age. The ministry hopes the move will eliminate gosh teachers.
Currently, there are 131,310 primary school teachers and 14,000 secondary school teachers on the government payroll.
The TMIS, a comprehensive electronic database for registering teachers, will be used jointly by various education ministry departments, education service commission and public service ministry.
The First Dady and Education Minister Janet Museveni yesterday launched the web-based platform on the second day of the 25th Education sector review workshop for the financial year 2017/2018 held at the office of the President in Kampala.
The sector review was held under the theme: striving for excellence in education and sports service delivery.
Paper registration to end
Many user roles have been identified for various stakeholders in the system. “With this system in place, teachers will be saved the cost and inconvenience of coming to Kampala for registration,” Dr. Jane Egau Okou, the Commissioner for Teacher Education, said.
She said the paper registration will continue alongside theonline process for the next six months as the sensitization of the clients goeson and thereafter, the registration will be fully online.
Registration into the new system requires details of the National identification card, and, this according to Egau, will not allow multiple registration.
She explained that the system has been designed to allocateone confirmation code (registration number) for every national ID details.
Egau also added that the system will enable the ministry to combat incidences where teachers,especially those on payroll, would amend their age when close to retirement.
“Once the National ID details are entered, the Ministry will be able to tell when a teacher will retire,” she said, adding that the system will also update the country on teachers expected to retire and immediate retirements.
She hailed UNESCO for the support in the introduction of TMIS. The UN agency donated 10 computers and two highly power printers to roll out the online registration,
The ministry signed a memorandum of understanding withNational Information Technology (NITA-U) which is hosting the system.
First Lady calls for Commitment
The First Lady, in her closing remarks, called on all the concerned to work towards closing the loopholes in the sector’s service delivery.
“We still need to do a lot plug loopholes in many areas. We noted for example, that our overall performance rating was grossly affected by that of the primary sub-sector. Therefore, it will take some more analysis to findout exactly where the problems lie, that we may indeed plug those loopholes,” she noted.
She also explained that there is a growing population thattranslates into massive demand for classroom space, increased staff at alllevels and other inputs.
Mrs. Museveni also noted that there is a declining share ofeducation budget as a percentage of the gross domestic product and the need toexplore all other options of potential investment.
She cited harnessing the greater participation of the non-state actors or private providers of education services as one of the solutions. She also noted the need for human capital development that’s responsive to the skills demanded by the industry.
Mrs. Museveni also noted that there is need to focus on education and training outcome, “beyond just knowledge and skills, but holistically on purpose of living at the individual, collective and National level”.