The Northern Territory's Department of Education is turning to data analytics to better monitor the performance of its schools and improve the educational outcomes of its more than 32,000 students.
The department is currently looking for a business intelligence solution and interface – dubbed eDash –that can improve access to the vast amounts of information stored in its data warehouse.
It follows a review of the department’s data and systems by the Australian Council for Education Research, which led to the implementation of a data reform agenda to improve “access to and analysis of key performance data for schools, regions and corporate areas to support school effectiveness”.
The eDash project aims to give teachers, principals and corporate officers a single point of access to information to support evidence-based decision making and better delivery of education services.
The portal will contain data on "school and student activity, achievement, behaviour and performance", at a "class, school, regional and departmental level”.
This includes information from NAPLAN, data on enrolment, attendance trends, absences, and student wellbeing.
“The inability to access increasingly detailed levels of performance information and analysis has been identified and the department has initiated the eDash project to meet this demand and reduce the number of systems users have to interact with to access information," tender documents state.
Despite improvements in the development of children between 2009 and 2012, the Australian Early Development Census revealed that the development outcomes for children in their first year of full-time school have not improved since 2012.
The department hopes to have eDash in place by the start of 2018.
