West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has launched an Educational Statistics platform (EDUSTAT), designed to ease access to quality data and insights in the educational sector.
This innovation was done to take the edge off the manual access to data by stakeholders, improve the quality of service delivery and generate more revenue for the Council.
Sidmach Technologies, Africa’s emerging ICT giant provided the technical support and expertise in the development and design of the platform.
Mr. Areghan, Head of the national office West African Examinations Council, WAEC Nigeria, speaking during the launch said that stakeholders do not need to write the body regarding any inquiry, as all information from the body can now be accessed anywhere in the world digitally with a little token.
He noted that the council is leveraging technology, detailed data analysis and insights, to establish itself as a leading light in the educational sector and a future brand by introducing this Educational Statistical Platform.
According to him, “As you all know, the new world is smarter and more instant. The access to statistical data analysis, its collation, interpretation and presentation cannot be different. Businesses and organizations alike need every edge and advantage they can get to improve service delivery, thanks to the rapidly changing markets, economic uncertainties, shifting political landscape, customer-focus, and even the global Pandemic, which have made statistical analysis more sought-after by researchers, for fact analysis and findings.
“The West African Examinations Council is committed to its mission of remaining Africa’s foremost examining body, providing qualitative and reliable educational assessment, encouraging academic and moral excellence, and promoting sustainable human resource development and international cooperation.
“As an examining body that has survived the centrifugal forces of the colonial era and remains the foremost examining body in the West African Sub-region, with a vast and rich database, it has become expedient to completely migrate from the manual way of interpreting data to a more sophisticated and advanced mode of data interpretation through technology.
Mr. Patrick Areghan blamed lack of quality data, inconsistencies and multiple data copies in education as reasons for false facts resulting in bad decisions-making and loss of revenue.
“WAEC identified these issues and sought to solve the problem through its new EDUSTAT product, which addresses poor infrastructure and the manual process of assessing educational insights and statistics”, he added.
This product according to him, “is borne out of the desire to provide stakeholders, such as researchers, funding agencies, government institutions, school administrators and parents with a reliable platform that provides educational insights collected from multiple sources and delivered in simplified graphs, summaries, and dashboards which help them enhance their decisions.
“The core benefit of EDUSTAT platform is access to a comprehensive interactive Web Report.
“Also, the platform offers detailed and smart statistical insights into education and assessment dynamics, using historical and current data to provide detailed intelligence for stakeholders across the globe, in a smart and easily accessible manner.
“One of the key features of this platform is its ability to analyze data in real-time.
“This means that educators can get immediate feedback on how their students are performing, enabling them to adjust their teaching strategies as needed. Additionally, the platform is designed to be user-friendly and customizable, allowing educators to tailor it to their specific needs and preferences.
“As the name implies, EDUSTAT is an innovative educational statistics platform designed to leverage WAEC’s comprehensive and reliable database of over 50 million candidates who have been tested over the years.
“This platform results from years of research, development, and collaboration, and we are confident that it will revolutionize how data is accessed.
“For schools, the platform offers student-level data on academic performance, attendance, and demographic information. This data can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses within the school and informed decisions about how to improve student outcomes.
“Institutions such as universities and colleges can also benefit from the platform by accessing data on enrollment and academic performance of their students. This information can be used to identify areas where additional resources are needed to support students and improve overall performance,” he concluded.
Also speaking, Mr. Chijioke Ekeh, Managing Director of Sidmach Technologies Nig. Limited, applauded the management of the West African examinations body for their foresight in identifying the need to democratize education data for the benefit of the regional education sector and economies at large.
He pledged Sidmach’s continued support to achieve greater heights in the sector.
During a demo session, Mr. Akintunde Opawole, the Product Manager at Sidmach Technologies Nigeria Limited, said EDUSTAT offers a wide range of features that will benefit the user.
He collaborated on the statement by Mr. Areghan’s that the artificial intelligence-driven platform provides, for instance Government agencies, detailed statistics on student enrollment, graduation rates, and academic performance at various levels of government.
He added that this platform will help policy makers make data-driven decisions about education policy, funding, and program design.
