Sort out ‘missing’ pupils data glitch

AT A time when all focus should be on the final exams getting off to a smooth start this week, education in the Eastern Cape continues to be beset by problems.

The newest headache, reported in The Herald yesterday, is that of pupils actively attending school, but appearing nowhere on the national education administration system.

Because these kids are “missing” from the database and therefore not being funded by the education department, schools are losing out on funding, teachers, food and essential supplies.

With up to 12 000 pupils potentially affected in the Eastern Cape, it is imperative that the efficacy of the SA School Administration and Management System, or SA-SAMS, be properly tested.

If, indeed, as some principals claim, there are serious glitches with the Department of Basic Education’s admin system, then a complete overall is certainly overdue.

Ironically, the Eastern Cape Department of Education embarked on a process earlier this year to get schools to verify IDs, passports and study permit numbers – a project it lauded at the time as a huge success.

Yet one specific problem area continually flagged by the schools concerns the input of pupils’ identification numbers. They say where an ID number is not available, the pupil is simply not acknowledged on the system.

Some of the pupils are foreigners without IDs; others are from this country who, for various reasons do not have access to their IDs.

Clearly, this is not just an education department nightmare – the Department of Home Affairs would be a key player in resolving many of these issues.

Without proper collaboration between the departments, it is unlikely the problem will ever be solved.

An integrated approach is vital – but then Home Affairs hardly has a stellar record itself when it comes to data management.