The Lao PDR Education and Sports Management Information System (LESMIS) has been developed with the support of the European Union and UNICEF under the Partnership to Strengthen the Education System.

(KPL) The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) launched on Jul 25 the Lao PDR Education and Sports Management Information System (LESMIS), a digital platform that will provide access to all key education data in the Lao PDR in an integrated manner to help inform policies to improve learning outcomes among Lao children.

The launch event was chaired by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phouth Simmalavong, Minister of Education and Sports.

In attendance were also Ms. Ina Marčiulionytė, European Union Ambassador to the Lao PDR, and Dr. Pia Rebello Britto, UNICEF Representative in the Lao PDR, alongside officials from MoES and representatives of development partners.

“Quality data is essential to improve ourunderstanding of the learning needs of ourchildren. To this end, LESMIS will act as a centralized data management platform providing instantaneous access to all key education data, whichhas become especially important in light of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Simmalavong. The Minister also thanked the European Union and UNICEF for their support in developing LESMIS under the Partnership to Strengthen the Education System (PSES).

Prior to the development of LESMIS, the MoES was using multiple data management systems run by different education departments, which made it difficult for data to be used to its full potential andoccasionally led to an overlap in data requests right down to the district and school level. LESMIS will help address this challenge andwill also be accessible online and as an app from the central level down to schools.

“LESMIS is designed to provide a fully coherent management information system for the entire education sector and as such, is a game changer for education data management in Lao PDR,” explained Marčiulionytė. She further added that the European Union and UNICEF are committed to supporting the MoES in achieving the objectives set forth in the Education and Sports Sector Development Plan (ESSDP).

“It is important to acknowledge that the LESMIS will continue to grow from here and that there are still additional education information systems to be added to the platform under the direction of the MoES. In this regard, UNICEF remains committed to providing our support alongside our partners,” said Dr. Rebello Britto. She also noted that UNICEF will continue to support the MoES in the operationalization of LESMIS and the capacity building of staff to ensure its full potential is utilised.

To further support the rollout of LESMIS, the EU and UNICEF also handed over ICT equipment to the MoES during the event, which were procured under the PSES. The equipment included333 computer laptops, 1,668 tablets and456television sets.The equipment, worth 899,000 USD, will also support the MoES in digital upskilling in other key areas under the PSES, including roll out of the MoES digital teaching, FQS and learning platform, Khang Panya Lao.

An additional batch of ICT equipment procured through funding from the Global Partnerships for Education (GPE) was handed over to the MoES to contribute to the COVID-19 response . This equipment, worth over 364,700 USD, included 200 computer laptops, 200 portable projectors, 450 tablets and 300television sets.

KPL