Exploring the Impact of Technology on Educational Management Information Systems in Nyanza County, Kenya: A Comprehensive Analysis

Information systems are created to enable organizations utilize technologies to gather and use information for effective management. The Ministry of Education (MOE) is committed to the implementation of Education Management Information System (EMIS) to provide data to improve planning, policy formulation and decision-making. MOE provides IT infra structure, trains personnel to manage data collection and it provides funds annually to the District Education Officers (DEO) to facilitate EMIS activities since 2004. Despite these efforts, EMIS technical team survey reveals that data capture completion rate has been low at the districts education offices thereby delaying the nationwide data processing; while the counties of Nyanza had the lowest data entry completion rate. This study aims to investigate the impact of technological factors on EMIS outcomes. The study employed both correlation and descriptive survey designs. The population consisted of 36 District EMIS coordinators, 72 Data Capture Personnel, 36 DEOs and the Regional EMIS Coordinator. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 29 District EMIS coordinators, 68 Data Capture Personnel, 29 DEOs and 1 Provincial EMIS Coordinator. The data were collected using questionnaires and Interview schedules. The regression results showed that technological factors contributed 12.7% towards EMIS outcomes. Staff competency (beta = 0.448) and IT infrastructure (beta = 0.258) were the best technological predictors of EMIS outcomes. The study recommended the MOE to empower the EMIS coordinators with more IT technical expertise to carry out maintenance of the IT infrastructure and to promote the cooperation among semi-autonomous governmental and nongovernmental organizations to participation in the process of developing an integrated platform and share new technologies for collection of educational data.