Teachers request the Education Ministry to extend the NEMIS Learner Registration deadline.

Teachers request the Education Ministry to extend the NEMIS Learner Registration deadline.

Educators from various regions of the country are presently urging the Ministry of Education to prolong the deadline for registering learners under the National Education Management Information System (NEMIS).

They have indicated that this request arises from the persistent failures of the system. The deadline, which expired at midnight on Easter Monday, resulted in several schools being unable to complete the registration process due to ongoing technical difficulties.

This situation has also brought together members of the Kenya Primary Schools Heads Association (Kepsha) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), both of whom are voicing their displeasure with the ‘inept’ NEMIS portal, which has frequently ‘experienced downtime in the previous two weeks. ’

As per the national chairperson of Kepsha, Fuad Ali, numerous headteachers were unable to input any information because the system crashed multiple times or failed to load.

This system requires immediate upgrading since most of the information it contains is utilized to inform capitation funding for the subsequent school term.

Failure to register will result in many schools receiving insufficient funding from the government.

He urged the ministry to provide the schools with an additional day or two to finalize the registration process.

It aims to replace NEMIS, which, since 2017, has been digitizing data in public and private primary schools across the nation and assigns each learner a distinct personal identifier to monitor the learner’s academic journey.

However, access issues and delays in providing login credentials to headteachers have contributed to inefficacy within the system.

Knut Secretary General Cohin Oyuu reiterated the call for an extension, stating that the technical difficulties should not prevent learners from being registered.

He cautioned that lack of inclusion in the NEMIS database would deprive children of access to educational resources and financial assistance.

This presents a challenge in the registration process for young children, whose parents do not possess copies of their birth certificates, which are essential for generating a Unique Personal Identifier (UPI).

This situation is particularly prevalent among children who have been entrusted to guardians or grandparents.

Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogambo underscored during a recent visit to Bomet County that planning and resource allocation would heavily depend on the data generated through NEMIS.

The deficiencies of NEMIS are undeniably causing significant challenges for many educators. The ministry will likely need to address these issues urgently.