Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS): Creating breakthroughs in many aspects

Minh Phong

December 21, 2022 10:26 (GMT+7)

GD&ĐT – Currently, there are more than 200 higher education institutions (HEIs) using and updating the Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS).

This is a useful tool, contributing to the development and improvement of the quality of higher education in Vietnam in the future. Mrs. Tran Nhat Tan – Deputy Director of the Support for Autonomous Higher Education Project (SAHEP), Ministry of Education and Training (GD&ĐT) had an exchange in the Education & Times Newspaper around this issue.

There will be a unified database.

– Madam, what does HEMIS mean for higher education?

“The aggregated data will tell the institutions where they are in the system. From there, there are strategies and plans for future development to improve the quality of training, associated with the socio-economic development plan of the region, locality and country” – Mrs. Tran Nhat Tan.

– The successful construction of HEMIS system software and put HEMIS into use has great significance for higher education. Thereby, this creates a great breakthrough in many aspects. Specifically:

For higher education management, to implement the Law on Higher Education which stipulates that the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Training is to build a national database on higher education. The fact that data is included in HEMIS is also the responsibility of the higher education institutions to be open and accountable. With this system, the Ministry of Education and Training will have a unified database which connects with existing databases of Early Childhood Education and General Education.

HEMIS contributes to reducing time, effort and human resources in the reporting work of training institutions as well as at the Ministry of Education and Training. At the same time, it also improves the effectiveness of the Ministry’s administrative reform.

Through HEMIS, the data is updated in a timely, complete and consistent manner. Thus, it helps management agencies to analyze accurate data, forecast and make policies on education and training.

The system aims to allow provision and exploitation as a national public service. The information stored on the database is official information, which can be referenced for education operations, creating convenience and transparency of information in society. This helps to strengthen communal beliefs in national education.

The HEMIS system will provide timely reporting data as a basis for building management and training policies for higher education. With these accurate and timely reports and data will help the Ministry of Education and Training and state management agencies in education to make policies to improve the quality of education and enhance the output quality of human resources to serve the country.

Higher education institutions are the focal point for providing statistics and reports as well as beneficiary of the HEMIS system through data mining.

Social and economic significance

– What does HEMIS mean in terms of society and economy?

HEMIS brings meaningful values for society. Specifically, HEMIS is an organic part of the national population database together with the existing databases of the Education. This system acts as a specialized database which providing the whole society with official data on higher education. All levels, branches, agencies, organizations and individuals within the scope of the database provided can exploit and serve the purposes of searching, analyzing and researching information for their work.

Through exploiting the system, it will contribute to improve efficiency in training orientation, scientific research and career guidance, bringing significant values ​​to the whole society.

Students and trainees are also beneficiaries. Summarized data from the database system on higher education is made public, thereby it helps students to know the supply and demand of human resources related to their major, market trend in the future, the ability of universities and shortcomings compared to the requirements of the labor market.

Millions of high school students are indirect beneficiaries of the project’s results. Through accurate data on each program and major such as the number of graduates annually, the number of graduates with jobs, market trends in recent years, etc., students and their families will decide the future career direction of themselves and their children appropriately.

Economically, HEMIS is a centralized system, avoiding the situation of patchy and fragmented investment from many different software of the units under the Ministry in a short term. In addition, HEI’s specialized software will be standardized and synchronized according to this system standard. These will contribute to minimize waste on equipment investment in a long term. As a result, it will contribute to save capital of the State budget.

Remove difficulties

Are there any difficulties or obstacles in putting into use and exploiting the HEMIS system? In your opinion, how to overcome those difficulties and obstacles?

– Currently, the biggest obstacle is that different HEIs use different management software. In those educational institutions, there are many management software such as accounting software, training management software, etc. On the other hand, the facilities of HEIs have also differences, so the investment of information technology management is also different. Therefore, there is no consensus among HEIs and it is difficult to update information on the HEMIS system.

To solve this problem, the SAHEP Management Board has coordinated with the Departments of the Ministry of Education and Training to review and recommend suggestions to perfect technical standards system on databases and a new shared list to replace the content of the database respectively according to Decision No. 4998/QĐ-BGDĐT issued on December 31, 2021 of the Minister of Education and Training on promulgating technical regulations on data of education and training databases.

Besides that, the software developer has introduced three input methods: direct input on the system, import from Excel File and use APIs to make the data entry easier.

– Currently, many individuals and units are still confused when accessing the HEMIS system. Is there any way to get rid of them?

“We required the contractor to set up a 24-hour technical support group with a public hotline number to quickly and effectively support users’ inquiries” – Mrs. Tran Nhat Tan.

– When designing the HEMIS software, we anticipated the difficulties from accessing and using the software. To overcome these difficulties, we asked the contractor to organize training courses and classes to guide how to use software for higher education institutions, managers of the Ministry of Education and Training such as: System Administration Training, Training on exploiting and synthesizing reports to serve the management of ministries and branches; Training on data entry and look up reports; Training on exploiting and synthesizing reports to serve the management of the Ministry of Education and Training.

In fact, these classes were held in online and in-person forms from December 1 to December 13, 2022 with the large participation of nearly 900 officials representing more than 300 people from HEIs nationwide and the managers of the Ministry of Education and Training.

– What are your expectations for this software?

– This software will create a breakthrough, qualitative changes in statistics, analysis and management of higher education such as:

Firstly, contributing to reducing the time and effort of human resources in statistical reporting of institutions as well as at the Ministry.

Second, strengthening the capacity to collect, process and manage higher education information and data.

Third, report automation, aggregation and data mining;

Fourth, strengthening the ability to monitor the implementation of the report and ensure the data quality of the report.

Thank you, ma’am!

“According to our updated figures, the last training session shows that more than 200 higher education institutions have used and updated this system. Thus, it can be seen that the HEMIS system will be a useful tool to contribute to the development and improvement of Viet Nam in future.” Mrs. Tran Nhat Tan.