Dept conducts workshop for Fode officers

THE Education Department is facilitating a workshop for 22 provincial Flexible Open Distance Education (Fode) officers on student information management system database to improve management of students’ information
A statement from the department said the workshop was funded by the World Bank to complement the installation of the internet connectivity that was carried out early this year. It was housed at Fode campus in Port Moresby last week.
It said over the years, Fode lacked capacity to properly manage the students’ records sent provincial centres in the country to the Fode headquarters at Waigani.
Fode provincial centres often experience the following challenges when records were done manually: records manually done was tedious and time consuming, very costly exercise to airfreight students’ information and keeping students’ registration forms in a secure place.
It said therefore, Fode secured funding from the World Bank and Government to implement the reform initiatives that include: capacity building in curriculum development and upgrading of the existing student database system.
“The purpose of the training is to improve Fode data management through upgrading of the existing student information management system (SIMS),” Fode stated
“The training was facilitated by the ICT division of the Department of Education and registry section of Fode.”
The participants were introduced to the new system of recording the students’ information, including study programmes which are currently done manually on the student record cards and subject record cards compiled on roll-checks.
At the moment records of students from all 22 province were mailed to the registry office to be entered into the system.
Fode is an open distance college that facilitates student progressive learning from Grades 7 to 12.