EMIS — a boon to TN teachers

CHENNAI: The Educational Management Information System (EMIS), a common online platform connecting Tamil Nadu schools, teachers, and students could be a one-stop solution for many teacher-related issues. But still, handling EMIS seems to be difficult for the teachers, especially in the rural areas, who face network and server issues. Moreover, with additional features being added to the EMIS nowadays, teachers, who were end-users of the online system, take it as an extra burden, additional to their teaching work, instead of realising its potential. Advantages of EMIS

EMIS, which is considered to be the digital backbone of the School Education Department, rests on three key pillars -- student data, teaching staff details, and school info. A senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next that all the data related to these three aspects are provided by the headmasters through the EMIS portal through an exclusive login provided to each school.

“The teachers have also been given a separate login to mark and track the attendance of students and attend personalised training programmes,” he said adding the authorities concerned could also access the EMIS for viewing report access dashboards for monitoring, tracking, and compliance purposes.

Stating that school-based administrative and academic registers are being automated through EMIS, he said “this will significantly reduce the burden on teachers having to laboriously fill up manual registers.” The official said that the (Rights to Education) RTE-related claims and other aspects of the verification process along with the financial reconciliation have been enabled through EMIS.

Stating that nominal roll preparation plays a vital role in the conduct of Board examinations for Classes 10, 11, and 12, he said “this has been made online through

EMIS and the integration of data with the Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) has helped reduce administrative work.”

The official pointed out the EMIS data is being effectively and speedily utilised for verification in implementing the 7.5 per cent reservation in higher education institutions extended to the government school students.

* BETTER MANAGEMENT OF STUDENT INFO ~ It contains data on attendance, performance, fee payment and exams

* OPEN COMMUNICATION CHANNELS ~ One can reach out to teachers, parents, or students both collectively and individually

* BOOST TEACHER PRODUCTIVITY ~ With EMIS managing most of the clerical works, teachers can focus more on enhancing student capabilities

Server issues while operating EMIS

With teaching staff, especially in government and government-aided schools, having to accomplish more than 20 tasks including updating the attendance details of both students and teachers, the server issues consumes more time.

Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Association president PK Ilamaran said even in the cities the server issues not only consume more time but also affect teaching. “At the same time, they should also ensure that all the data should be accurate,” he added.

He also urged the School Education Department to appoint computer operators in each school so that they would take care of EMIS-related jobs.

Recently, AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam pointed out that the teachers were asked to enter several data in the EMIS and due to this order, teachers could not concentrate on teaching, which was considered very important.

The AIADMK coordinator also claimed teachers were complaining that due to EMIS data entry work, half a day was consumed and they were confused about what had to be done during the remaining day.

Network issues in rural areas

J Senthilnathan, a tech-savvy senior teacher at a middle government school in Ramanathapuram district pointed out that several teachers, especially in the rural areas, complain that due to poor network, the EMIS-related work gets delayed and they could not compete on par with their counterparts in the cities.

A senior headmaster at a government high school in Dharmapuri district, seeking anonymity, said that due to poor network, the works in the EMIS are getting piled up. “The authorities should solve the issue network issues so that teachers could access the EMIS effectively,” he added. He said since the internet connection is poor, many teachers travel a lot to approach browsing centres to access EMIS.

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