The National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA) has inaugurated the School Licensing and Inspection Management System (SLIMS), a digital platform for the licensing and inspection of schools by the independent body.
The digital platform, which was inaugurated by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, is an initiative to enhance quality, convenience and timeliness to ultimately strengthen its monitoring and supervision activities.
The system, which has two models for licensing and inspection, is accessible off-line nationwide and available to school proprietors and schools to make requests to NaSIA for licensing and inspection.
Inspector-General of Schools at NaSIA, Dr. Hilda Haggar Ampadu, highlighted that digitalising the process is to revolutionise educational administration in private and public schools to enhance efficiency and accountability by streamlining inspection planning and execution, automating report generation, and ensuring immediate and transparent transactions.
“The launch of SLIMS marks a significant milestone in our journey toward enhancing educational quality and accountability in Ghana. This system will streamline our inspection and licensing processes, eliminate constraints occasioned by limited resources and tedious processes, and also empower schools with the tools they need to improve teaching and learning outcomes,” she said.
She explained that school inspections used to be laboriously carried out manually, resulting in mountains of paperwork and significant delays in generating inspection reports. The licensing process was equally cumbersome, impeding progress.
To tackle these challenges head-on, the NaSIA revamped its Inspection Evaluation Framework (IEF), inspection handbook and digitised forms. This overhaul significantly streamlined the inspection process, slashing the average inspection time per school from a week to just a day, and condensing the inspection report length from a hefty 46 pages to a concise 10 pages. It has also significantly reduced processing time for the production of inspection reports from four months to two weeks.
Presently, the authority has successfully implemented most of the Inspection and Licensing Modules, with the remaining three modules underway – promising even further enhancements for seamless processes.
The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, during his address at the launch event held at Alisa Hotel, commended NaSIA for its innovative efforts in transforming education regulation with the introduction of SLIMS.
“The system essentially represents the government’s commitment to using technology to transform education and guarantees that every child in Ghana has access to a high-quality education,” he said.
He stressed that the vital contribution of private education providers to Ghana’s educational landscape cannot be overemphasised; hence, the need to acknowledge their role and provide a convenient regulatory ecosystem for them to thrive.
“In 2017, when the Akufo-Addo-led administration set out to fulfil the promises we made in our 2016 Manifesto, this included “shifting the structure and content of our education system. We have clothed the National Schools Inspectorate Authority (NaSIA) with the needed regulatory powers for efficient supervision and regulation of pre-tertiary schools. This has empowered, strengthened and equipped the authority as an independent body to fully carry out its mandate, leading to the development of SLIMS,” the Veep emphasised.
