Support for Disability Inclusive EMIS in Cameroon

Client: Sightsavers 

Duration: 2020-2021 

Geography: Cameroon 

Solutions:  Organisational Learning and Growth, Research

Cameroon in its national education sector strategy has committed to strengthening its Education Management Information System (EMIS). It has also laid out key objectives for improving the inclusion of learners with disabilities in all aspects of the education system, including in data collection. The PAREC (Programme d’Appui à la Reforme de l’Éducation au Cameroun) project, implemented by the Ministry of Basic Education and supported by the World Bank and UNESCO, is working extensively on strengthening the EMIS. However, there is a gap in understanding how these efforts can centralise the inclusion of data on disability in schools.  

Sightsavers, a leading voice in inclusive education in Cameroon, contracted Oxford MeasurEd to carry out a diagnostic assessment of the EMIS, with an aim to provide a cohesive view of its strengths, and in particular, what challenges needed to be overcome in order to ensure that the system could be made disability inclusive. We then used this diagnostic assessment to develop a plan in support to the Ministry of Basic Education and the PAREC programme.  

Key Activities:  

• Developed a framework based on the World Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results EMIS tool (SABER-EMIS) 

• Adapted the framework to focus specifically on inclusion of learners with disabilities in the EMIS 

• Conducted a series of interviews and an extensive review of documents to provide data for the diagnostic assessment 

• Co-created with Sightsavers an approach to developing and piloting new inclusive EMIS tools based on the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module (WG-CFM)