JEDDAH, 2 September 2004 — Connecting girls’ schools in Jeddah to the Education Administration through the Intranet is a step toward e-government, but it is already encountering some obstacles.
According to Okaz newspaper, the system broke down two days ago and caused chaos in the registration process of girls in their schools. This reverted the process to the old system of registration through the Education Administration itself resulting in more confusion and frustration among parents. “The system could not take the pressure because the experimental operation system was conducted during the school break when there wasn’t much pressure and so did not give accurate results,” Abdullah Al-Mohammadi, assistant director general of girls’ education in Jeddah, told Okaz. The company contracted to install the system was asked to fix the problem quickly.
With schools about to open after a week, more glitches are expected especially as many parents wait till the last minute to register their wards.
“The system began operating last year after connecting all girls’ schools to the education administration and we had some problems of incorrect entries by school administrators,” a source at the administration told Arab News.
Many school administrators had to take computer-training courses, but some administrators say it is not always their fault. As an example, the principal’s assistant at an intermediary school cited her experience last year. After she spent hours entering the names of all the students and their final grades and checking and rechecking the information and sending it through the net, the administration requested her to send all the information again written by hand because they had some problems in the system. “I know this system is supposed to make things easy for all of us, but I’m afraid it’s going to increase our workload if they don’t get things right,” she told Arab News.
Officials at the education administration admit that there will probably be some problems but the benefits of the system outweigh the occasional hitch. More than 400 schools in Jeddah have been connected to the network and the first programs applied were for registering students and the transfer of teachers from one school to another.
Installing the system cost SR5 million and it aimed to facilitate faster and more accurate transfer of information and communication between the schools and the administration. More than 55,000 students have been registered through the system since its installation.
