Project
Technical assistance for the Ministry of Education’s WebGIS School Maintenance System
Project duration: 2020-2022
Location: Jordan
List of Donor(s): Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)
Brief project overview:
The Ministry of Education officially launched the WebGIS School Maintenance System in March 2022 in partnership with UNESCO and GIZ, following extensive development and piloting. At the request of the MoE, the WebGIS Smart School Maintenance Module (SSMM) was developed for all school maintenance needs to be electronically captured, monitored, analyzed and used to inform evidence-based decision making related to corrective school maintenance and budget planning.
The SSMM complements the ѴǷ’s Geographic Information System (GIS), which was implemented in 2016 with the support of UNESCO and linked to the ѴǷ’s EMIS to optimize planning of school infrastructure and resources at all administrative levels of the Ministry. The SSMM does not only support the MoE school maintenance workflows, but also the prioritization, tracking, reporting, visualization as well as quality assurance of the overall ѴǷ’s school maintenance procedures and regulations. The SSMM was also developed as a mobile-based application for Android and IOS users to ensure the full accessibility of the tool.
The MoE kicked off the Kingdom-wide roll out of the SSMM at the end of March 2022, training all 168 Field Engineers from 42 field directorates in Jordan. In July 2022, the 168 Field Engineers completed the training of SSMM at school-level, training 6,695 trainees from 3,730 schools.
A technical software training and handover was also delivered to six MoE technical staff to be fully sustained and maintained by assigned MoE WebGIS technical team, including the ability to fully administer the SSMM web and mobile applications and database and perform the necessary set of actions to configure, update or extract data from the database, as well as to troubleshoot some basic issues. Technical documentation for the SSMM web and hybrid mobile applications was finalized, translated and handed over to the MoE officials.
An orientation session on the WebGIS School Maintenance Indicators Visualization Module was also held for high-level relevant MoE officials.
This project was successfully completed in September 2022. Currently a phase III of WebGIS implementation is being prepared with the Ministry of Education, complemented by the System Strengthening Partnership Programme.
Objectives:
- School maintenance needs are electronically captured, monitored, analyzed and used to inform evidence-based maintenance and budget planning within the Buildings & International Projects Department at MoE
- Relevant MoE staff within central ministry and field directorate levels are equipped to utilize the smart school maintenance module using the enhanced WebGIS tool.
Areas of Intervention:
School Maintenance and Infrastructure Management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Education Management Information System (EMIS), Data, System Strengthening, Evidence-Based Education Planning and Policy.
Timeline
2016 - Phase I of WebGIS support – The WebGIS tool was developed at the request of the MoE and was introduced to the Educational Planning and Research Department for better school infrastructure mapping and planning. The tool, which uses a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS), was customized as per MoE requirements, and training was provided to build the capacity of the MoE on the usage of the tool.
2018 - Phase II of WebGIS support – UNESCO, in partnership with GIZ, launched the “Technical assistance for the EMIS System and WebGIS tool for the School Maintenance System, Standards and Procedures” in support of the MoE. Under this initiative, further technical support was provided to the GIS Unit to enhance and update the tool to address emerging needs on school mapping and planning, while helping the Ministry establish an evidence-based approach for school maintenance work being handled by the MoE.
2019 - Request made by the ѴǷ’s Buildings and International Projects Department to add enhanced facility management features to the WebGIS tool.- Following extensive technical consultations with the MoE, a hybrid decision-support system, known as the Smart School Maintenance Module (SSMM), including a mobile app, was developed as part of WebGIS and rolled-out Kingdom-wide, to improve the school maintenance process from both the planning and implementation perspective.
- 2022 - Integration of the school maintenance workflow into WebGIS was completed, following system design, development and piloting. Through a cascade training led by 15 MoE Master Core trainers from the central level, and 168 Field Engineers from all 42 Field Directorates, 6,695 trainees from ċċ 3730 schools were trained on the use of the SSMM (including the mobile app)
