Wednesday, July 09, 2014 - Peshawar—Centre for Governance and Public Accountability (CGPA) has hailed Elementary and Secondary Education Department (E&SED) for recent initiative to proactively disclose Education Management Information System (EMIS) data on its website.
Muhammad Anwar, Executive Director CGPA, stated that information is crucial for getting citizens involved in planning and management processes of public service delivery. He termed openness and transparency as basic prerequisite for good governance.
The data set provides very important and comprehensive details regarding all 28,280 government schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This online data include information regarding enrolled students, teachers’ Parent Teacher Councils (PTCs), missing and available facilities in each school.
This data set covers last four years 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14. Furthermore, the data also provides each school name mapped at union council, tehsil and district levels.
Muhammad Anwar said, E&SED has taken very positive step by making all schools data available online. Now citizens can track available and missing facilities in these schools, and can participate in improvement public education service delivery.
This data also provides details regarding schools budgets. Having this information handy, people can also demand their elected representatives to provide missing facilities in their schools, and can hold public service providers accountable.
Mr. Anwar further stated proactive disclosure has become a legal obligation under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information Act 2013. Such proactive disclosure will automatically reduce number of information requests under the KP Right to Information Act 2013, as most of the data will be available online.
This will help save time and very important resources of Public Information Officers and government departments. Information held by public bodies is owned by citizens, and therefore government departments should provide maximum information and record through online sources. Other government department should follow Khyber Pakhtunkhwa E&SED, he concluded.—APP