The authorities of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) have on Wednesday launched an educational statistics platform, called EDUSTAT.
Announcing the innovation at its corporate office in Yaba, Lagos, WAEC’s Head of National Office, Nigeria, Mr Patrick Areghan said the new Educational Statistics (EDUSTAT) platform, is designed to ease access to quality data and insights in the educational sector.
He said that the innovation was done to take the edge off the manual access to data by stakeholders, improve the quality of service delivery and generate more revenue for the Council.
According to him, WAEC Nigeria leverages technology, detailed data analysis and insights, to establish itself as a leading light in the educational sector and a future brand by introducing this Educational Statistical Platform.
He said: “As you all know, the new world is smarter and more instant. The access to statistical data analysis, its collation, interpretation and presentation cannot be different.
“Businesses and organizations alike need every edge and advantage they can get to improve service delivery, thanks to the rapidly changing markets, economic uncertainties, shifting political landscape, customer-focus, and even the global Pandemic, which have made statistical analysis more sought-after by researchers, for fact analysis and findings.
“The West African Examinations Council is committed to its mission of remaining Africa’s foremost examining body, providing qualitative and reliable educational assessment, encouraging academic and moral excellence, and promoting sustainable human resource development and international cooperation.
” In meeting the growing global demands for corporate organisations, sometimes, it takes just one individual to come up with an innovative approach that gives the organisation competitive edge. Still, more often than not, it requires the collaboration of various teams and the combination of many different data sources.”
Areghan continued: “As an examining body that has survived the centrifugal forces of the colonial era and remains the foremost examining body in the West African Sub-region, with a vast and rich database, it has become expedient to completely migrate from the manual way of interpreting data to a more sophisticated and advanced mode of data interpretation through technology.
“For many stakeholders, lack of quality data has led to inconsistencies and multiple data copies in education. For others, incorrect data and the absence of analytics have led to false facts resulting in bad decisions-making and loss of revenue, in some cases.
“WAEC identified these issues and sought to solve the problem through its new EDUSTAT product, which addresses poor infrastructure and the manual process of assessing educational insights and statistics.
EDUSTAT Benefits
“The new product, EDUSTAT, is borne out of the desire to provide stakeholders, such as researchers, funding agencies, government institutions, school administrators and parents with a reliable platform that provides educational insights collected from multiple sources and delivered in simplified graphs, summaries, and dashboards which help them enhance their decisions. The core benefit of EDUSTAT platform is access to a comprehensive interactive Web Report.
“Also, the platform offers detailed and smart statistical insights into education and assessment dynamics, using historical and current data to provide detailed intelligence for stakeholders across the globe, in a smart and easily accessible manner. One of the key features of this platform is its ability to analyze data in real-time.
“This means that educators can get immediate feedback on how their students are performing, enabling them to adjust their teaching strategies as needed. Additionally, the platform is designed to be user-friendly and customizable, allowing educators to tailor it to their specific needs and preferences.
“EDUSTAT is an innovative educational statistics platform designed to leverage WAEC’s comprehensive and reliable database of over 50 million candidates who have been tested over the years. This platform results from years of research, development, and collaboration, and we are confident that it will revolutionize how data is accessed.
“However, to achieve the best outcomes for our students, we need to be able to measure and analyze educational data effectively. This is where EDUSTAT platform comes in.
This new platform seeks to change views about data analysis by providing users with easy-to-use tools to analyze and visualize data. It offers a wide range of features that will benefit our users. For Government agencies, it provides detailed statistics on student enrollment, graduation rates, and academic performance at various levels of government. This information will help policy makers make data-driven decisions about education policy, funding, and program design.
“For schools, the platform offers student-level data on academic performance, attendance, and demographic information. This data can be used to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses within the school and informed decisions about how to improve student outcomes. Institutions such as universities and colleges can also benefit from the platform by accessing data on enrollment and academic performance of their students. This information can be used to identify areas where additional resources are needed to support students and improve overall performance.
“Similarly, the platform provides researchers with a comprehensive and intuitive way to track and analyze educational statistics. It is designed to be accessible to educators at all levels, from classroom teachers to school administrators and policy makers. With this platform, you can easily track student progress, identify areas of weakness, and make data-driven decisions to improve outcomes for all students.
“The West African Examinations Council recognizes the importance of data privacy and security. It has ensured that the platform is built with the highest standards of data protection in mind, ensuring that all data are kept confidential and secure at all times. We are optimistic that our new educational statistics platform will be a game-changer for educators and students.
“WAEC is proud to be at the forefront of this new era of educational technology and we are excited to see the positive impact it will have on the lives of students across the globe.
“Users of WAEC EDUSTAT can log on to www.waec.edustat.ngto sign up, select parameters, select their preferred method of report generation (Summaries, Charts, Maps, Trends), make payments, download and use the content for personal / official purpose. For further enquires, users can send an email to support@edustat.ng.
We are grateful to the Registrar of the Council for his support. We thank our technical partners, SIDMACH Technologies Nig Ltd, and the EDUSTAT Committee, for working assiduously and committedly to make this project a reality. Above all, all thanks belong to God.”
