annex vii: development of an individual student …...2 situation analysis 2.1 cambodia present...

Annex VII: Development of an Individual

Student Tracking Pilot in Cambodia

Department of Planning

Date: 12-June-2019

Preliminary Contents

Table of Contents

Preliminary Contents.................................................................................................................................... 2

Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2

Tables and Figures ................................................................................................................................... 3

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 5

1.1 Background .................................................................................................................................. 5

2 Situation Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 6

2.1 Cambodia Present Student Tracking System ............................................................................. 6

2.2 Path Forward ................................................................................................................................ 6

3 Development Requirements for the Planning Student Tracking System ......................................... 8

3.1 Overview of the Student Tracking System .................................................................................. 8

3.2 Student Tracking Entities ............................................................................................................ 8

3.3 Student Tracking Data Entry and Management ......................................................................... 9

3.4 Student Tracking Functionality .................................................................................................... 9

3.5 Data Management and Reporting ........................................................................................... 10

4 Functional Changes Required to the System .................................................................................. 11

4.1 Requirements for the System .................................................................................................. 11

4.2 General Deployment Architecture ............................................................................................ 12

4.3 Implementation Strategy .......................................................................................................... 15

4.4 Stage 1: Pre-Pilot Functionality Changes ................................................................................. 15

4.5 Stage 2: Single District Pilot .................................................................................................... 17

4.6 Pilot location .............................................................................................................................. 18

4.7 Stage 3: National Rollout .......................................................................................................... 18

5 Workplan and Risks .......................................................................................................................... 19

5.1 Workplan.................................................................................................................................... 19

5.2 Risks and Contingencies .......................................................................................................... 20

Annex 1. Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 20

Annex 2. Student Tracking System Interfaces .................................................................................... 22

5.3 Entities and Fields for the Student Tracking System .............................................................. 22

5.4 Interfaces for the Student Tracking System ............................................................................ 25

Annex 3. Scholarships IS Report ......................................................................................................... 29

Annex 4. Minimum Benchmarks for Schools to Access EMIS/Student Tracking Directly ............... 30

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 30

Access to minimum infrastructure, hardware, software and internet connectivity .......................... 30

Access to staff with appropriate training and skills ............................................................................ 30

Appraisal and approval for access to the systems ............................................................................. 31

Use of Cluster Offices ........................................................................................................................... 31

Annex 5. Attendance Monitoring Indicators ........................................................................................ 32

5.5 Absenteeism rate by grade and gender .................................................................................. 32

5.6 Critically absent rate by grade and gender.............................................................................. 33

5.7 Chronically absent by grade and gender ................................................................................. 34

Tables and Figures

Table 1. Main Entities of the Student Tracking System ....................................................................... 8

Table 2. Main functions identified in the Student Tracking System ................................................... 9

Table 3. Single school cost to activate under the Student Tracking System ...... Error! Bookmark not

defined.

Table 4. Rollout to all schools estimated cost to activate under the Student Tracking System

(excluding infrastructure and electricity connectivity) ................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

Figure 1. Architecture of Deployment .................................................................................................. 12

Table 5. Different levels of access to the Student Tracking System ................................................ 13

Figure 2. Departments requiring access to Student Tracking ........................................................... 13

Table 6. Functionality required for Phase I ........................................................................................ 15

Table 7. Level 2 functionality .............................................................................................................. 16

Table 8. Forms for Level 2 functionality ............................................................................................. 16

Table 9. Training for the Pilot .............................................................................................................. 17

Figure 3. Workplan for the implementation of Student tracking ....................................................... 19

Table 10. Risks and Contingencies ...................................................................................................... 20

Table 11. School Data (Stored historically to year) ............................................................................. 22

Table 12. Student Base Data ................................................................................................................ 22

Table 13. Student Attendance Archived ............................................................................................... 22

Table 14. Student Attendance Daily ..................................................................................................... 23

Table 15. Student Scores ...................................................................................................................... 23

Table 16. School Events ........................................................................................................................ 23

Table 17. Manage School Calendar ..................................................................................................... 23

Table 18. User Account Management .................................................................................................. 24

Table 19. Managing Classrooms .......................................................................................................... 24

Table 20. Schedule of Study ................................................................................................................. 24

Figure 4. Interface: Home screen ........................................................................................................ 25

Figure 5. Interface: Search for Schools ............................................................................................... 25

Figure 6. Interface: School Calendar ................................................................................................... 26

Figure 7. Interface: Report on Attendance .......................................................................................... 26

Figure 8. Interface: Managing School Events ..................................................................................... 26

Figure 9. Interface: Attendance Monitoring ........................................................................................ 27

Figure 10. Interface: School History ................................................................................................... 28

Executive Summary

1.1 Background

Cambodia’s National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2014-2018 highlights the development of

high quality and capable human resources as key to supporting economic growth and competitiveness

in the country. Education development is critical for Cambodia’s transition from a lower-middle income

country to an upper-middle income country by 2030 and a developed country by 2050. The Education

Strategic Plan (ESP) for the period 2014-2018 is designed as a further step in putting in place the

necessary human resources and infrastructure to help achieve the national vision and goals.

As such, timely, accurate, meaningful and qualitative data on all aspects of the education system is

required to help identify the strengths of the Cambodian Education system and more importantly to

identify and address the weaknesses, particularly those pertaining to equity. Cambodia’s Education

EMIS should supply managers and stakeholders at all levels of Cambodia’s education sector with

comprehensive, shared, accurate and up to date information and data for planning, resource

allocation, monitoring and evaluation in order to support a strong culture of data driven decision

making.

The importance of education data is further reinforced by Cambodia’s commitment to achieve global

Sustainable development goals (SDG) in all areas including the goal of education (SDG4). In achieving

SDG 4, Cambodia aims to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. This will

take considerable effort to reach vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities,

indigenous people, refugee children and poor children in rural areas. As such the further strengthening

of Cambodia’s information systems and capacity to utilise data derived from those systems is essential

to addressing issues of equity and inclusion.

At present, The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and Ministry of Labor (for TVET) oversees a

large number of disparate information and data systems which together provide information on the

education system throughout Cambodia. The systems are collectively referred to as Cambodia’s

Education Management Information System (EMIS) however they are not formally recognised as a

coherent system (DQAF 2018).

Globally many countries are now migrating systems towards the tracking of individual pupils. Such

systems, when implemented correctly, have many advantages over collecting aggregate pupil data

including greater capacity to analyse data track policies and create a national registry of students

and their achievements.

The Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has recently piloted a student tracking

system. A rapid analysis was undertaken concerning the pilot and other initiatives relating to student

tracking and made recommendations for future development in order to ensure eventual full

national coverage of student tracking as well as use of the information at all levels of government.

This report is based on the recommendations contained in the rapid analysis and details the

requirements for further development of student tracking in Cambodia and should form as the basis

for responses to request for proposal (RFP) issued by UNICEF on behalf of the Ministry of Education,

Youth and Sports (MoEYS).

2 Situation Analysis

2.1 Cambodia Present Student Tracking System

The Department of Planning’s, Student Tracking System suffers from the following shortcomings:

It is cost prohibitive to use the system for all schools in Cambodia, as the cost to deploy and

maintain the system, in its current format, are too high and the system would not function in

the vast majority of schools throughout Cambodia without a large capital outlay and

significant recurrent costs1.

The system has no suitable reporting for schools, districts and provinces and thus schools

have little incentive to use the system.

The system is not integrated with the EMIS and thus duplicates data and does not take

advantage of the other data stored in EMIS on the school such as infrastructure.

2.2 Path Forward

To function effectively, Cambodia must develop a scalable student tracking system that:

Is cost effective

manages scholarships

Reports student outcomes

Stores limited attendance data

Generates reports that are effective and useful tools at the schools, districts and provinces

At present the student tracking system does not meet that criteria requires development to achieve

this. Either system could be adapted with additional design considerations facilitated through

software development. The present Student Tracking System has the basis of the functionality

required as it tracks students properly through their academic career.

In order to achieve scalable student tracking it is required to pilot a proper student tracking system

in one whole district at all levels of the education system. The reason for selecting a whole district

and all levels of education is to ensure the system is suitable for the following:

Transition between schools and between levels of the education system

Data volumes are manageable for district level operators

All schools can be included in the system and not just those well-funded and well equipped.

The system is cost effective and of a suitable budget.

Reports are useful and used at school, district and state level. This is critical to ensuring

sustainability of the system and use of the data (cost effective).

The system should include the following general requirements:

1 The system only works online at present and requires card scanners and fingerprint readers in all

schools. To equip and implement the student tracking system in all schools would be an initial

capital outlay of about 24,232,105 USD and a recurrent budget of approximately 6,419,981 USD or

4,846,421 USD if an internet service provider were sourced for free. These costs do not include

training, electricity or infrastructure which would be additional. This cost is likely prohibitive to enable

full rollout to all government schools.

Full student tracking which stores an academic and enrolment history for each child.

Linked to EMIS during the pilot.

Five to eight fields for student bio data: Student ID; Name; Date of birth; Gender; Commune;

Disability (classification); Wealth Classification; Ethnicity.

Student ID

o Should satisfy the requirements for a unique identifier in that is should be a) unique

and b) permanent and unchanging for the life of a citizen c) cross sectorial including

TVET and Higher Education

o Can be generated using any method. Acceptable methods include:

Allocating packets of numbers to districts. This would allow districts to create

new student numbers as required.

Using the online system to generate an ID automatically upon registration.

Using a combination code and incremental number (provided that once

assigned it remains unchanged regardless of changing circumstances. An

example of this code may be: <year birth><district first enrolled

code><incremental number>.

Additional data that should be stored for each student includes:

o Information on scholarship awards and receipts.

o Learning results by subject and year

o Summary attendance data (either monthly or annually)

o Additional student biodata for schools able to directly access the system.

Data entry to occur at the district level. Optionally data entry could be undertaken through

schools but only for those schools adequately equipped (meeting minimum benchmarks

(refer Annex 4). Schools that are able to enter data directly can have additional optional

fields for each student.

o Attendance data should be entered as summary data for each child for the month or

term (number days attended only) and not daily or via cost prohibitive equipment

such as a card reader/finger print scanner.

The system should be capable of replacing school record keeping electronically

Reports should include:

o Individual Student report cards and student administration reports (for schools that

can directly access the system)

o Monitoring reports for attendance, critical and chronic absenteeism rates at school

and regional level (refer annex 5).

o District and provincial level reports and ensuring information is used at district and

provincial level to monitor schools, school attendance, school learning outcomes,

pupil flow rates and other related issues.

o A school report card to be used for school development planning.

Transfer between schools should have a properly managed process and be thoroughly

tested. Students in the pilot district should be required to present their student ID upon

enrolment for any year beyond KG or Grade 1 year.

Full software and intellectual ownership should reside with the MoEYS.

In planning the pilot, it is essential that full rollout and annual operational costs be estimated and

that the system is cost effective and to a realistic and affordable budget.

3 Development Requirements for the Planning Student

Tracking System

3.1 Overview of the Student Tracking System

The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) received a grant from a Global Partnership of Education

to fund the Second Education Sector Support Project (SESSP) administered under the International

Development Associate (IDA). The amount was 500,000 USD and included both hardware and

software to enable the software in 55 schools. The software Design for School Student Tracking

System was bid under Bid Ref. MoEYS/SESSP/NS-G-019 in 2015.

The provision included

15000 necklace cards, plastic and wires

SIM cards for internet and calls

Internet fees for 55 schools and 5 for central at 10 dollars a month for 2 years per school.

Internet fee for central department for 5 years.

112 Safety boxes for Finger Print scans

10 boxes of network cables

Computer network tools and accessories, Domain Registration, Web hosting

Software and database license

There was no provision for database standards, software standards, ongoing licensing costs or

ownership of intellectual property.

The software was piloted in 55 schools in 7 provinces using 200 students per school between 2016

and 2018.

3.2 Student Tracking Entities

The following table lists main entities in the Student Tracking Pilot2. Detailed fields are presented in

Annex 2.

Table 1. Main Entities of the Student Tracking System

SN Main Entities Description

School Data (Stored historically

to year)

Stores data describing the school, its contacts, principal and

other factors. Some data is stored historically for each

academic year such as school principal.

Student Base Data The student base data contains the basic biodata such as the

students home, contact details, parents.

Student Attendance Archived The summary results of each students’ attendance by month

and by year. This data is stored permanently.

Student Attendance Daily The daily students’ attendance is recorded and stored for up

to one month prior to deletion.

2 An entity is any object in the system that we want to model and store information about. Entities

are usually recognizable concepts, either concrete or abstract, such as person, places, things, or

events which have relevance to the database. Some specific examples of entities are Employee,

Student, Lecturer.

SN Main Entities Description

Student Scores The students aggregate score is stored. Scores by subject are

not stored.

School Events The main events of the school can be recorded as part of a

calendar function.

Manage School Calendar Records the main events created for the school calendar

annually including vacation times.

User Account Management Login details for each user are stored

Managing Classrooms Manages details on classrooms including a relationship to the

teacher teaching in the classroom.

Schedule of Study Establishes the classroom schedule

3.3 Student Tracking Data Entry and Management

Screen Interfaces are shown in Annex 2. In general interfaces are well designed and support

functions.

Student details and other data for the school are managed through the school via a desktop

computer.

Attendance is automatically registered based on student identification at school each morning via

the card and thumb print scanning machine. The details are stored in the machine if the internet is

not online or enabled for up to one month. Once uploaded the details are stored in the student

tracking database for up to a month before being converted to aggregate monthly attendance.

3.4 Student Tracking Functionality

The following table contains the main functions identified in the Student Tracking System.

Table 2. Main functions identified in the Student Tracking System

SN Function Description

1 Searching and listing

schools

Searches schools via a range of parameters and lists searched schools for

reporting

2 Register Schools Register new schools and enter all school details.

3 Edit/Delete Schools Edit, or delete

4 Register students Register new students in the system and assign to a class/year.

5 Promote a student Promote, dropout (with reason) or repeat a student

6 Transfer a student Transfer a student between schools.

7 Print Cards Print student ID cards

8 Edit/delete students Edit student details or delete students from the system.

9 Managing the

academic year

calendar

Modify the annual school calendar

10 Managing School

events

Modifying, Removing, Viewing school events such as holidays and

celebrations

11 Managing

Classrooms

Modifying, Removing, Viewing classroom details

12 Managing student

attendance

Search by parameters, modify for groups and individuals monthly, annually

13 View student history View a students full academic and enrolment history including past student

cards.

14 Automatic

Attendance

Daily attendance is read directly from the card reading, finger print scanning

machines.

3.5 Data Management and Reporting

In each of the pilot schools’ data was managed by the Information Technology teacher who was

trained in the use of the system. The system operates online only which places considerable

requirements on schools to have electricity, computers and internet connectivity. The system is in

Khmer language only.

Students are supplied with a scan card at the start of the year and until requiring replacement. The

scan card is used along with the fingerprint scanner to gain access to the school. Arrival and

departure times are stored in the scanner and uploaded to the computer when internet is available.

The information from the scanner is only recorded for a month in the database before being

converted to a monthly enrolment figure for each student. Primary schools were responsible for

organizing their own cards however secondary schools were awarded cards during the pilot.

Students are fully tracked with a history of each child stored in the system. Each child has a unique

ID which is generated from Birth document code and other composite numbers. The system also

stores the national ID if the person has it however this is typically awarded when a child is in late

teens and so not appropriate for a student information system as the primary ID.

Problems encountered during the pilot include card readers breaking, computers malfunctioning,

trained school staff changing and internet being down.

Students who have dropped out are kept in the system and should be reenrolled under the same

student record and ID.

Student scores are only stored as a single semester score representing the average of all subjects.

As there is only a single focal point at the school it was felt that schools could not manage

attendance.

There is facility for children to have their own account and children and parents can log into view

attendance and the childs details on a mobile however interfaces have not been designed for mobile

access and so are not suitable. Districts and provinces were not granted access to the pilot and no

reporting was piloted with them.

4 Functional Changes Required to the System

4.1 Requirements for the System

The student tracking system should have the following functionality.

1) Cost affordable deployment options

a. Capacity for schools to access online and offline

b. Capacity to manage schools from School, Cluster office or District level depending on

the capacity of the school.

c. Not require substantial additional hardware such as fingerprint and card scanners

which require maintenance and support and which break easily.

2) Meets the needs of departments requiring student tracking

a. manages scholarships

b. Tracks exam results

c. Identifies and tracks disadvantaged children (including those with disability or from

disadvantaged ethnic groups)

d. Reports student outcomes

e. Full student tracking which stores an academic and enrolment history for each child.

3) Meets the needs of different stakeholders

a. Generates reports that are effective and useful tools at the schools, districts and

provinces

b. Can populate the EMIS database with student data for enrolment data

4) Useful for monitoring of students and schools in administrative offices

a. Produces student report cards

b. Stores limited attendance data and identifies students critically (>5%) and

Chronically (>10%) absent

5) Useful to schools who can access the application directly.

a. Functionality relevant to the school for schools to access the system.

b. Replace paper based record keeping for students.

6) Schools must meet a minimum criteria to access the system (refer annex 4).

7) Appropriate data volumes

a. Data volumes must be acceptable for districts who must manage data for offline

schools.

8) Full coverage

a. Must include all schools in a region and not just those well-funded and well

equipped.

b. Must manage transition between schools and tracking of Out of School Children

(OOSC)

4.2 General Deployment Architecture

4.2.1 Overall Architecture

The general Deployment Architecture of the proposed Student Tracking System is detailed below.

Figure 1. Architecture of Deployment

The student tracking system will be used to populate data for EMIS for schools who are part of the

student tracking. Data should be updated between the two databases annually to ensure proper

data for statistical reporting.

It is envisioned that there will be three levels of access to the system:

DEMIS

DoP Stakeholders (some)

Department Planning

Department Inclusive

Education

Scholarships

Department Primary

Department Secondary

District Education

Office

Provincial

Education Office

Validates data

Generates provincial

education reports

Validates data

Generates district level

education reports

Enters data for offline

schools

Access directly and

manage school data

Generate school level

reports

Either

Submit student data

to DEO

Enter data directly at

school cluster offices

or internet facilities

Offline Schools Online Schools

Districts

Province

EMIS

Student Tracking

Monitor and remit

scholarships

Assist children with disabilies

Monitor sector performance

Etc

Individual Student

tracking data should be

warehoused in the EMIS

annually for statistical

reporting.

1. School level data management

2. Cluster level data management

3. District level data management

There will be two levels of functionality and data in the system.

Level 1 functionality will be for school level access (schools who can directly data

management the student tracking system).

Level 2 functionality will be for cluster office and district office data management has

reduced requirements on student data and on report generation and is for schools who

cannot access the internet and manage data directly in the student tracking system.

Table 3. Different levels of access to the Student Tracking System

SN Level of Access Description

1 School level data

management

Schools which can access the internet directly and satisfy the prerequisite for

schools to access the student tracking system (refer annex 4) may benefit from

the full functionality of the student tracking system at school level. For these

schools the student tracking system should replace school paper based record

keeping. Functionality and reports will be added to enable schools to benefit

from the data in the system. For these schools level 1 functionality will be

accessible.

2 Cluster level data

management

Cluster level data management is for schools who can access internet and

computing facilities at cluster offices. Depending on the capacity of the school

and its proximity and access to the cluster office either level 1 or level 2

functionality may be accessed.

3 District level data

management

District level data access will take place through District Education Offices and

will be for schools who do not have access to the internet or a suitable cluster

offices. In such cases the district office will manage student tracking.

At the national level stakeholders will have access to the data directly through departmental logins. Key

departments requiring access are noted in the table below.

Figure 2. Departments requiring access to Student Tracking

SN Level of Access Description

1 Department

Planning

Access data for the purpose of planning, analyzing individual student data and

determining new methods of analysis and use by other departments.

2 Department of EMIS Access data for the purpose of planning, analyzing individual student data and

determining new methods of analysis and use by other departments. Access

for statistical purposes.

3 Department

Inclusive Education

Track support to disadvantaged students

Identify and track Children with Disabilities (CWD)

Identify and track other children considered disadvantaged such as those from

different ethnic backgrounds or migrant workers.

4 Scholarships Identify individual students receiving scholarships.

Track performance and attendance of students receiving scholarships

Remit receipt of scholarships to students (refer report annex 3)

5 Department Primary Access data for the purpose of planning, analyzing individual student data and


6 Department

Secondary

Access data for the purpose of planning, analyzing individual student data and


4.2.2 Unique ID for all Students

The management of unique student records in the system and of an academic history of each child

is key to ensuring

The essential requirement is for a universal, permanent Student ID to be applied throughout

Cambodia. This is required because there is presently no other method for unique identification of

children under the age of a national ID. A birth registration exists but it is not accessible at the

national level but rather at the commune level. Additionally not all children are properly registered.

There are several options for this:

1) Ensure all children obtain a birth registration number and certificate and use this as the

unique identifier. A period of time (1 – 2 years) could be given to ensure all parents register

their children. This would be the ideal solution for Cambodian children and would commence

the process of ensuring a unique national identify from birth. However, this may not be

suitable for children of migrant workers or other transient or disadvantaged population

groups who may find it difficult to register for a birth certificate. For those children unable to

provide a birth certificate number, a unique student identification (Student ID) number can

be used.

2) The Student Should satisfy the requirements for a unique identifier in that is should be a)

unique and b) permanent and unchanging for the life of a citizen c) cross sectorial including

TVET and Higher Education

3) The Student ID can be generated using any method. Acceptable methods include:

o Allocating packets of numbers to districts. This would allow districts to create new

student numbers as required.

o Using the online system to generate an ID automatically upon registration.

o Using a combination code and incremental number (provided that once assigned it

remains unchanged regardless of changing circumstances. An example of this code

may be: <year birth><district first enrolled code><incremental number>.

o The system can automatically generate Student ID’s in cases where birth registration

is not available.

4) It is essential that duplicate student records be avoided or minimized in the system. For this

reason, the student ID must be used for:

a. Reenrollment of a child who had dropped out of school after Student ID’s had been

implemented. The student ID should be required by schools enrolling any child who

had dropped out of school AFTER the student ID system has been created.

b. Transfer of a student from one school to another.

5) The system should facilitate searching for a student already in the system based on age,

name, date of birth or uniquely identifiable other factors so that schools or districts can

easily identify whether a child is in the system or not.

6) Schools should have a record of students and their ID’s which should be supplied by the

district office after initial student data is entered.

7) Processes to facilitate management of student ID need to be drafted into the roles of school

and district responsible staffs.

4.3 Implementation Strategy

It is proposed to implement the student tracking system in three stages. It is recommended that the

first two stages be funded through the GPE 3 support of 150,000 USD. The implementation strategy

emphasizes piloting in a whole region (district) so as to properly pilot full student tracking in a region

and full data coverage for administrative purposes. All levels of the education system to upper

secondary should be part of the pilot in a single region (district).

The three stages are:

1. Stage 1: Pre-Pilot Functionality Changes. Functional changes are required to the system to

ensure that it is cost effective and can be used to manage student data for both online and

offline schools.

2. Stage 2: Single District Pilot. All levels of the education system to upper secondary should be

part of the pilot in a single region (district). There will be three levels of access to the system:

a) School level access

b) Cluster level access

c) District level access

Refer the section above includes more details on each level.

3. Stage 3: National Rollout. A national rollout should follow the pilot project. The government

may wish to rollout gradually district by district or state by state or to have a single national

rollout. This would be dependent on funding post pilot.

The lead departments responsible for the implementation should be the

a) Department of Planning

b) Department of EMIS

An external software development company should be contracted to work at the Department of EMIS

with the EMIS programmers to ensure implementation of the system.

The system should be hosted on the server at the Department of ICT or the Department of EMIS.

4.4 Stage 1: Pre-Pilot Functionality Changes

4.4.1 Overview of Phase

Stage 1: The pre-pilot functionality change is envisioned to take between 6 to 8 months and should

ensure that the student tracking software is suitable for all levels. Stage 1 per-pilot includes

development of core functionality required for level 1 and 2 access. The pre pilot functionality phase

should commence with a full requirements analysis for all stakeholders including school, district,

state and departmental level. These should be documented in a comprehensive design document

specifying all aspects of change required to the system.

4.4.2 Level 1 Functional Changes

Level 1 functionality is for schools who can directly access the system on a regular basis. The

following functional changes should be made for level 1.

Table 4. Functionality required for Phase I

SN Functionality

1 Remove the requirement for the attendance scanners (fingerprint and photograph) and make optional

for schools who wish to monitor attendance in this way.

2 Enable functionality for the adding and tracking of individual scholarship awards to students and

remittance of funds. Add reports for school, district and national level.

3 Add student Learning results by subject and year for each semester

4 Enable facility to input summary attendance data (either monthly or annually) for each student as a

single number of days attended. The system should calculate critical and chronic attendance rates

reports at school, district and national level (refer annex 5).

5 The method for classifying disability should be revised to enable proper identification of disability

6 Ethnic categories should be included and revised.

7 Individual Student report cards and student administration reports (for schools that can directly

access the system)

8 District and provincial level reports and ensuring information is used at district and provincial level to

monitor schools, school attendance, school learning outcomes, pupil flow rates and other related

issues.

10 A school report card to be used for school development planning detailing school performance in

relation to student data including student flow rates such as dropout rates, promotion rates and other

factors disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, disability.

11 Other functionality as determined during the requirements phase (refer workplan below)

12 Integration of EMIS data form with the student tracking system so that other EMIS data can also be

directly input by the school such as concerning teachers and facilities.

4.4.3 Level 2 Functionality

Level 2 functionality is for schools who cannot access the internet directly or directly and easily

accessible through cluster offices. Schools accessing level 2 functionality will either input data at

cluster offices (or internet cafes) or complete paper forms for submission and data entry at district

offices. The following functionality is required for level 2 functionality.

Table 5. Level 2 functionality

SN Functionality

1 Functionality 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8

2 Reduce student fields to:

Student ID

First and second Name

Date of birth

Gender

Commune

Disability (classification)

Wealth Classification

Ethnicity.

For schools relying on districts, student data will be sent via forms between the district and school

according to the following forms.

Table 6. Forms for Level 2 functionality

SN Form Description Frequency

1 Student intake form. All new intakes must be registered in the

system. This will be mainly for students

entering in grade 1

One time at the start of

the academic year

SN Form Description Frequency

2 Student dropout form To identify all students dropping out during a

year.

One time at the

conclusion of the

academic year

3 Student repetition form To identify all students repeating a year One time at the start of

the academic year

4 Student attendance form To note summary term attendance for each

student (single number of days)

Once per term at the

conclusion of the term

5 Student performance

form

To note one grade mark per student per

subject

Once per year at the

conclusion of each

academic year.

6 Student enrolment list

and ID

To send to the school from the district office

noting the unique student ID and bio data for

each pupil.

Once per year at the

start of the academic

year.

4.5 Stage 2: Single District Pilot

Stage 2: Single district pilot will involve piloting of all schools and all students in a single district. It is

envisioned that the duration of the pilot will be one year and will test all functionality and processes

including student transfer and dropout prior to national rollout. A decision to extend the pilot an

additional year can be made pending review at the conclusion of the first year.

All schools and all students must be piloted. The selected district should have:

1. A mix of offline and online schools.

2. A district office with competent and motivated staff, computers and internet connectivity.

3. The district should be located near to Phnom Penh to reduce travel and logistics during the

pilot.

4. The district should have a mix of rural and urban schools.

5. The district should have at least one school of each level

Workshops and trainings will be conducted with staff in schools and in the district office throughout

the pilot. There are four levels of training envisioned.

Table 7. Training for the Pilot

SN Training Description Frequency

1 Schools online Training will be conducted for operators and

other staff for schools who can access the

student tracking directly (level 1 functionality)

Two times per year

during the pilot

2 Schools offline Training will be conducted for data recording,

form filling and report interpretation for

schools unable to access student tracking

directly

One time per year for

the duration of the pilot

3 District office Training for district office staff in forms,

reports and use of the system will be

conducted twice a year and through regular

mentoring and support.

Two times per year

during the pilot

4 Departments, state and

National level

Training will be conducted for departments

and for state level operators and managers to

access the system and generate and use

reports from the system.

Two times per year

during the pilot

4.6 Pilot location

The pilot will take place in a district of Siam Reap which is anticipated to have between 80 and 110

schools in total from pre-primary to upper secondary.

4.7 Stage 3: National Rollout

Stage 3: National rollout will occur at the conclusion and evaluation of the pilot. The rollout may

occur district by district, state by state or it may occur as a national rollout, depending on the funding

available and decisions of the government.

The prospective tenderer is not responsible for the national rollout but must make consideration in

speed, performance and recommendations for hardware.

5 Workplan and Risks

5.1 Workplan

The proposed workplan is simplified in the concept note and should be expanded during the full design phase.

Figure 3. Workplan for the implementation of Student tracking

SN Task Output Months

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

1 Stage 1: Requirements

analysis for all

stakeholders

Detailed

requirements

analysis

3 Stage 1: workshop to

confirm requirements

Confirm

requirements

analysis

2 Stage 2: Design of the

changes to the student

tracking

Design document

3 Stage 2: Changes to

software in accordance

with the design

Level 1 and level 2

functionality

implemented

4 Stage 2: Pilot

(Including support to

the district office and

schools)

5 Stage 3: Training

school, district and

state staff in the target

district (3)

6 Stage 2: Pilot

evaluation and

concluding workshop

5.2 Risks and Contingencies

The pilot is relatively free of risk however the following risks and contingencies are possible for the

pilot.

Table 8. Risks and Contingencies

SN Risk Likelihood Impact Contingency

1 Student transfers and

dropouts are difficult to

manage and retain for

districts and schools

Medium Medium Continuous training, policy change

and facilitation of communication

between schools, districts and

actors within the school will help

ensure the institutionalization of

student tracking as well as the use

of Student ID

2 Schools loose interest in the

pilot once funds are

withdrawn

Low High The student tracking will replace

EMIS forms for student data and

thus schools will be required to

complete the forms annually. It is

important that this replacement is

made during the pilot so that

schools do not view the student

tracking as doubling work.

In addition reports will be

generated for school level which

will help schools with school

planning.

For schools accessing level 1

functionality the application will

replace existing paper based record

keeping.

Annex 1. Bibliography

Bober, M. (2001). School information systems and their effect on school operations and culture.

Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 33 (5), 1-11.

GoC (2014) National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2014-2018, Government of Cambodia

Gurr, D. (2000) How information and communication technology is changing the work of principals.

Paper presented at the International Congress of School Effectiveness and Improvement, Hong

Kong, January 4-8. Available at: http://www.ied.edu.hk/cric/ic2000/s9list.htm

MoHA (2017) Lao People’s Democratic Republic Peace Independence Democracy Unity Prosperity

(Draft) CRVS Strategy 2016–2025, Laos MoHA

Shoobridge J.A (2018) Indicator, Coding, Entity, Data, Software, Hardware, Vendor and School

Access Standards for Education Sector Management Information Systems and Related Data

Capture in Laos, Ministry of Education and Sports, UNICEF

Shoobridge J.A (2018) What Role for EMIS? Supporting the strengthening of Education Management

Information Systems at country level, UNESCO, Global Partnership for Education (GPE)

http://www.ied.edu.hk/cric/ic2000/s9list.htm

Shoobridge J.A., Bajracharya R. (2018) Cambodian Education Data Quality Assessment Report,

UNESCO, UNICEF, Ministry of Education Youth and Sports Cambodia.

Annex 2. Student Tracking System Interfaces

5.3 Entities and Fields for the Student Tracking System

Table 9. School Data (Stored historically to year)

SN Field Notes / Description

1 School code

2 Name of school

3 Level (Upper Secondary High

School)

4 Director's name

5 Show the last scanning date

6 Students practice

7 Total students calculated on total enrolment numbers

8 Total female students

9 Total number of teachers

10 Total number of teachers

11 School email

12 Telephone number of the school

13 Web Site or Social Network (FB)

14 Telephone number of the

principal

E-mail the principal

Table 10. Student Base Data

Field Notes / Description

name (in khmer)

Name (Latin)

Username

Birth lot number

ID card number

Sex

Date of birth

Place of birth

Current address

Phone number

Email

name of dad (dead)

My father's phone number

name of mother (death)

Parent's phone number

Guardians

Contact Number of Guardians

Guardian's address

Birth Certificate Scanned

Identity card Scanned

Family book Scanned

Year of study

Table 11. Student Attendance Archived


Student Attendance Monthly

Student Attendance Annually

Table 12. Student Attendance Daily


Date

Time in

Time out

Class

Table 13. Student Scores


Score

Academic Year

Classroom

PDF score

The first semester First half academic score

The second half Second half academic score

Academic Year

Rankings

Results Points

Table 14. School Events


Date

Reasons

Type

Classroom

Duration

Start time

End time

Table 15. Manage School Calendar


Year of study

Code

Start the school year

Completion of the academic year

Start a small vacation

Finishing a small vacation

Start a big vacation

Table 16. User Account Management


name (in khmer)

name (latin)

Username

Email

Phone number

Address

password

Table 17. Managing Classrooms


Year of study

Code

Grade

Number of school year services

Classroom teacher

Teacher's phone number

Number of students

Table 18. Schedule of Study


Classroom

Date

Time study (Monday to Saturday)

5.4 Interfaces for the Student Tracking System

Figure 4. Interface: Home screen

Figure 5. Interface: Search for Schools

Figure 6. Interface: School Calendar

Figure 7. Interface: Report on Attendance

Figure 8. Interface: Managing School Events

Figure 9. Interface: Attendance Monitoring

Figure 10. Interface: School History

Annex 3. Scholarships IS Report

Annex 4. Minimum Benchmarks for Schools to Access

EMIS/Student Tracking Directly

Introduction

Starting in 2019, direct access to EMIS will be available for schools throughout Cambodia. However,

in order to for schools to properly engage with EMIS requirements must be met. These include:

1. Access to minimum infrastructure, hardware, software and internet connectivity

2. Access to staff with appropriate training and skills

3. Appraisal and approval for access to the systems

Each of these is explained in more detail in the sections below. Each school will be granted access

based on satisfying the above requirements. Each school will only be able to input and modify data

for its school and not for other schools.

Access to minimum infrastructure, hardware, software and internet

connectivity

Schools are required to have the following infrastructure, hardware, software and internet

connectivity:

Hardware:

Either:

a) A desktop or laptop computer with a minimum monitor size of 12

b) A table with minimum screen size of 11 inches

Software:

Both:

a) Operating System: Any

b) Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer latest version or Google Chrome latest version.

Internet connection:

a) Broadband connection having 25 Mbit/s downstream (from the Internet to the user’s

computer) and 3 Mbit/s upstream (from the user’s computer to the Internet)3

b) 3G or 4G mobile access typically 22 Mbit/s in the uplink and 14.7 Mbit/s downstream.

Access to staff with appropriate training and skills

Staffs are required to have basic skills in using computers including navigating browsers (Microsoft

Explorer or Google Chrome), storing and retrieving files. The following skills are not required but

would be advantageous in selecting a candidate to engage with LESMIS:

1) Knowledge in core Microsoft Office products including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word.

2) Knowledge of education statistics and data

3 As defined by American guidelines 2015 for broadband connectivity.

3) Capacity to troubleshoot computers

4) Analytical and writing schools

Staffs are required to have undertaken approved training in accessing and using EMIS4.

Appraisal and approval for access to the systems

Schools seeking access to EMIS should submit a request acknowledging they satisfy the basic

requirements. The application will be approved by the Department of EMIS and a user login and

password approved for use by the school for direct access to EMIS.

Use of Cluster Offices

Schools are encouraged to empower and use their local Cluster Office to help satisfy the

requirements for accessing EMIS. If schools can empower and user their Cluster Office for direct

access to EMIS then they do not need to individually satisfy the requirements for direct access to the

system but can rather access the system directly from their Cluster Office.

4 Approved training is under review

Annex 5. Attendance Monitoring Indicators

5.5 Absenteeism rate by grade and gender

5.5.1 Definition:

The Student absenteeism rate is the average number of days students are absent as a proportion of

the total number of days the school is open over a given time period. A student absent rate of less

than 90% indicates issues and should be urgently addressed.

5.5.2 Purpose:

Student absenteeism is a significant problem in Cambodia. Absenteeism is generally considered a

precursor to repetition and dropout.

5.5.3 Calculation method:

Average Attendance Rate = Sum (Attendance Rate for each pupil)/Count of Students

Average student attendance rates are calculated for each student based on data in FEMIS.

Attendance Rate = Number of days attended / total number of days in the term or year

If partial data is available then the Attendance Rate = Number of Days recorded as attended / total

number of days reported (absent or attended)

The average school attendance rate for a school, year or other collective is calculated on a per

student basis, then average or proportion of, after that.

If a school has incomplete attendance records for a term, then the ratio of the subset is used for that

term. So if only 150 of 200 students had attendance records recorded for that term and 100 were

critically absent then the proportion of students critically absent for that term is 100/150 = 66%,

rather than 50% if the full 200 students were used.

5.5.4 Interpretation:

A low percentage of less than 90% indicates severe issues of student absenteeism. Student

absenteeism is considered a precursor to dropout and repetition.

5.5.5 Type of data source:

Presently student attendance is only recorded at the school however it should be recorded in DEMIS.

5.5.6 Disaggregation:

By wealth quintile, type of disability, gender, geographical location (regions, urban/rural) and type of

institution (public/private).

5.5.7 Limitations and comments:

In many cases schools may be reluctant to accurately record student absenteeism as it may also

reflect on teacher absenteeism. This can lead to inaccuracies in reporting and thus calculation of

student absenteeism rate.

5.6 Critically absent rate by grade and gender

5.6.1 Definition:

The Student Critically absent rate is the number of students who are absent for a large number of

days (7% of the total) for a year as a proportion of all students in the cohort, grade, school or region.

5.6.2 Purpose:


precursor to repetition and dropout. Children who are critically absent are more likely to repeat or

dropout. The attendance rate may mask these children and so critically absent rate is an effective

measure to help identify severe absenteeism.


A student is critically absent if he or she is absent for more than 5 days a term.

This is expressed as a ratio of available data as only partial data is available on many students.

Therefore, a student is critically absent if he or she is absent for 7% of days or more. This is

calculated as a ratio of recorded days.

Student is critically absent IF Attendance Rate <= 92%

The critical absence rate is calculated on a per student basis, then average or proportion of, after

that.

The proportion of students critically absent for a school, year or other collective is calculated as:

% students critically absent = Count (students critically absent) / Total number of students for which

attendance rate is calculated

The total number of days in a term is on average 70. However as 5 days per term is the definition of

critically absent, the ratio is worked out as a proportion (i.e. 5/70 = <93%). Each student is taken as

a ratio of days absent for days recorded. Thus if a student is recorded for 20 days, of which 3 are

absent, then 3/20 = 15% absence = 85% attendance which is a critical absence – even though only

3 days absent – we have to assume it’s a ratio of the full days for the semester.


A high percentage of critically absent children indicates severe issues of student absenteeism.

Student absenteeism is considered a precursor to dropout and repetition.





institution (public/private). Disaggregation by discipline or major is also required.





5.7 Chronically absent by grade and gender

5.7.1 Definition:

The Student Chronically absent rate is the number of students who are absent for a very large

number of days (15% of the total) for a year as a proportion of all students in the cohort, grade,

school or region.

5.7.2 Purpose:


precursor to repetition and dropout. Children who are chronically absent are far more likely to repeat

or dropout. The attendance rate may mask these children and so critically absent rate is an effective

measure to help identify severe absenteeism.


A student is chronically absent if he or she is absent for more than 10 days a term.

This is expressed as a ratio of available data as only partial data is available on many students.

Therefore, a student is chronically absent if he or she is absent for 15% of days or more. This is

calculated as a ratio of recorded days.

Student is chronically absent IF Attendance Rate <= 85%

The chronic absence rate is calculated on a per student basis, then average or proportion of, after

that.

The proportion of student chronically absent for a school, year or other collective is calculated as:

% students chronically absent = Count (students critically absent) / Total number of students for

which attendance rate is calculated

The total number of days in a term is on average 70. However, as 10 days per term is the definition

of chronically absent, the ratio is worked out as a proportion (i.e. 10/70 = <85%). Each student is

taken as a ratio of days absent for days recorded. Thus, if a student is recorded for 20 days, of which

3 are absent, then 3/20 = 15% absence = 85% attendance which is a chronic absence rate – even

though only 3 days absent – we have to assume it’s a ratio of the full days for the semester.


A high percentage of chronically absent children indicates very severe issues of student

absenteeism. Student absenteeism is considered a precursor to dropout and repetition.





institution (public/private).





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