THE Internet Society, Ghana Chapter (ISOC Ghana) is developing a software that would enable parents to track the academic performance of their wards from kindergarten to Junior High School.
President of ISOC Ghana, Marcus Adomey who disclosed this said a Management Information System (MIS) being created would make this activity possible through the web and mobile applications.
MIS is a computer system that serves as the backbone of an organisation’s operations and gathers data from multiple online systems, analyses the information, and reports data to aid in management decision-making.
Mr Adomey was speaking at a seminar held in Accra on Saturday to commemorate Software Freedom Day on the theme “Innovation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Open Source Technology”
The day is an annual global celebration of free and open source software during which platforms are created to increase public education on the importance and usage of software.
Jointly organised by the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE), ISOC Ghana and the Linux User Group, the seminar brought together ICT experts, students and enthusiasts.
Aside the monitoring function, Mr Adomey, said the MIS would enable Ghana Education Service and the government to have data for effective planning and decision making in the education sector.
He said ISOC Ghana would team up with AITI-KACE for fruitful conclusion of the project and rallied developers in the country to join the group to make this project one of the successful projects in Ghana.
According to him, it was important to invent software that addressed issues in specific areas in the Ghanaian economy noting that the society would continue to come up with innovative solutions.
Director-General of the AITI-KACE, Kwasi Adu-Gyan also announced that the centre and its Indian partners were developing a computer software to aid academic work in the basic and secondary schools.
Dubbed “Nyansapo Operating System (NOS)” it is a free and open source software that would allow users to run customised applications similar to that of Microsoft office and access educational materials.
According to him, the software would save the country an estimated $20 million licence fees paid to Microsoft and other operating systems providers, annually.
Mr Adu-Gyan, said the software was the first major project of the AITI-KACE’s Ghana Centre for Free and Open Source Software in Bolgatanga in collaboration with India’s Centre for Development of Advance Computing.
The NOS, he said was being modelled after India’s version called “edubox”, which had been used in the country since 2007 to enhance education in basic and high schools.
He said the technical aspect of the project, started four months ago, was expected to end within one year after which the Ghana Education service would be engaged on the other aspects.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
