WAEC unveils educational statistics platform
West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has unveiled a new technology to ease access to quality data and insights into the country’s educational sector.
The technology, known as Educational Statistics (EDUSTAT) platform, is an addition by WAEC to the list of existing technologies.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Head of National Office (HNO), WAEC, Mr Patrick Areghan, described the platform as a game changer.
He said EDUSTAT was borne out of the desire to provide stakeholders like researchers, funding agencies, government institutions, school administrators, and parents.
with a reliable platform that provides educational insights
Areghan said the educational insights were collected from multiple sources and delivered in simplified graphs, summaries and dashboards, that would assist in enhancing their decisions.
He said the core benefit of the new technology was access to a comprehensive ‘Interactive Web Report’.
He said the innovation was done to take the edge off the manual access to data by stakeholders.
Areghan said it was also to improve the quality of service delivery and generate more revenue for the examination body.
The WAEC boss added that for many stakeholders, lack of quality data had led to inconsistencies and offered multiple data copies in education.
He said for others, incorrect data and the absence of analytics have led to false facts, resulting in bad decision making and loss of revenue in some cases.
“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. Council again leverages 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. 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 organisations 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 has made the statistical analysis more sought-after by researchers for fact analysis and findings,” he said.
Areghan added that the new platform also aimed to change views about data analysis by providing users with easy-to-use tools to analyze and visualise data.
He stated that it offered a wide range of features that would benefit users, noting that for government agencies, it provided detailed statistics on student enrollment, graduation rates, and academic performance at various levels.
He said such information will help policymakers make data-driven decisions about education policy, funding, and program design.
Areghan said WAEC was committed to its mission of remaining Africa’s foremost examining body, providing qualitative and reliable educational assessment.
He said the council would also continue to strive to encourage academic and moral excellence and promote sustainable human resource development and international cooperation.
Listing other benefits of the new technology, Areghan said the platform offered 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.
SOURCE: SUNNEWS
