Being transparent: In major step, K-P’s education dept puts elementary school data online

Information on 28,000 schools available along with downloadable maps.

PESHAWAR:

Any information you may want to know about Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s elementary and secondary schools is now all online. The education department has made available all of its statistics and maps, even for schools with missing facilities, at www.kpese.gov.pk.

The data on the website includes comprehensive details on all 28,280 government schools in the province. Information from each school on enrolled students, employed teachers, parent-teacher councils as well as both available and missing facilities are cleanly and neatly categorised. You can even download KML formats of the 25 maps to see them in Google Earth.

This information is part of the department’s EMIS which stands for “Education Management Information System”. It helps the department collect data, store it, integrate it, analyse and finally disseminate it. This collection of information makes it possible for planners and administrators to assess the system and its workings more effectively.



A non-profit that focuses on education has hailed the department for making this move. According to a press statement from the Centre for Governance and Public Accountability, issued on Tuesday, the centre’s executive director, Muhammad Anwar, said that the information available on the department’s website is crucial to getting citizens involved in the planning and management of public service delivery.

The Elementary and Secondary education department website has detailed district-wise maps of all government schools in K-P. PHOTO COURTESY: WWW.KPESE.GOV.PK.

Anwar said openness and transparency were a basic prerequisite for good governance. “The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education department has taken a very positive step by making data on all schools available online,” said Anwar.

Now citizens can track available and missing facilities in these schools, and can participate in improving the service delivery of public education, he added.

The department’s website also provides details on the budgets of these schools. This information can be helpful and people can demand their elected representatives make sure that missing facilities are addressed at their relevant schools, remarked Anwar.

The centre’s official further said that proactive disclosure has become a legal obligation under the province’s Right to Information Act 2013. “Such disclosure will automatically reduce the number of information requests under the Right to Information Act as most of the data will be available online. This will help save time and resources of public information officers and government departments,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2014.