Oakar Services Ltd. Developing and Implementing System
Redlands, California—ESRI announces that the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Kenya has contracted Oakar Services Ltd. (OSL), ESRI’s distributor in eastern Africa, to develop a geographic information system (GIS) database of the educational facilities in the country.
Comments Thomas Ndegwa, technical director at OSL, “In a developing country such as ours where there is a large demand for donor aid, we are very fortunate that our government has taken the bold step to approve this project. It is a tribute to the forward thinking of the Kenyan government and its recognition of the critical importance of the education of our youth as well as its clear understanding of the value of spatial analysis in the decision-making process.”
The project, started in December 2006, is valued at US$1 million, and is being funded with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Despite improved performance in education, the government was concerned about a number of issues including overcrowded classrooms and the availability of educational resources. Other concerns included the lack of a clear view of the location and distribution of educational facilities in the country, as well as their condition, and the number, availability, and distribution of classroom instructors.
To improve access and equity in the provision of quality education throughout the country, the government began implementing the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme (KESSP) in 2005. A key part of KESSP was the development of a clear picture of the country’s existing educational resources. It was determined that the implementation of a GIS could provide the necessary geographic view and analytic capabilities required to continue the improvement of education in the country.
OSL is implementing a comprehensive GIS for geodatabase development. The software includes ESRI’s ArcGIS Server, ArcView, and ArcPad and Trimble’s GPS GeoCollector.
The project involves recording the names of the schools, their locations (latitudes and longitudes), and their primary physical features. This information will be integrated with attribute data including school enrollment, number of teachers, and the school’s educational resources, which will be collected in the field. When the location data is merged with attribute data and other demographic information, it will assist policy makers in obtaining answers to questions such as, Where are new schools needed now and in the future? Where are educational facilities limited or duplicated? Where are new teachers needed? Where is in-service training needed? Where is the nearest location where students can obtain elementary or secondary education? Where is significant population growth or decline expected?
Comments Eric Nyadimo, the project coordinator, “Combining GIS and GPS technology has enabled us to map more than 20,000 schools spread across an area of about 250,000 square kilometers in less than three months because all verification is done in the field.”
Concludes Ndegwa, “This project will benefit the Ministry of Education by providing a view of the country’s educational facilities and its student population within a geographic context. In addition, by linking the database to the Education Management Information System (EMIS), we can perform various analyses at local or national levels and foresee developing trends and patterns, which can be used for planning and decision making.”
About OSL
Oakar Services Ltd. is the authorized distributor for ESRI and Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging (LGGI) in eastern Africa as well as a reseller for a variety of other products such as Trimble GPS receivers, ArcCadastre, and Cellular Expert. Visit OSL at www.esriea.co.ke.
About ESRI
Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit ESRI at www.esri.com.
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