Hai Duong education sector effectively uses database

Consensus

From the 2023-2024 school year, the Department of Education and Training of Hai Duong province has deployed the integration of school management operations on the education and training sector database system (sector database) and agreed to use this software only in all schools in the province from preschool to high school. Teacher Nguyen Huu Tuong, Principal of Hiep Luc Secondary School (Ninh Giang) said that the comprehensive management sector database system includes school records, staff, teachers, students; professional management, scores, classification assessments, graduation and reports. "The sector database system was put into use from the 2018-2019 school year, but at that time it only included simple data to support reporting work. Now that management operations have been integrated, this tool has become more effective and can be used on many devices," said Mr. Tuong.

In previous school years, schools had to use two systems at the same time: the industry database and school management software with separate functions. Teacher Do Thi Du, Vice Principal of Yet Kieu Primary School (Gia Loc) said that the school has a large number of students with a total of 22 classes and nearly 680 students. Although both systems store information about schools, classes, and students and are synchronized, there is a delay, data discrepancy, and teachers spend a lot of time operating on both software to edit and enter data for reporting. Using only one industry database software helps reduce time and pressure for teachers. In addition to having a friendly interface, the industry database software is quite smart in entering student scores, evaluating and classifying, and exporting data in convenient and quick forms.

The strength of the industry database system is that the data is continuously updated and connected from the school to the management levels of the industry. Mr. Hoang Minh Duc, a primary school management specialist (Department of Education and Training of Ninh Giang district) said: "The software serves the management work well. In addition to providing periodic reports, whenever we log in to the system, we can grasp the situation at the schools in the district. Especially when there are changes in students transferring in or out of schools, we know immediately because the school is required to enter the information of that student into the software in order to be able to arrange classes."

Ensure data is "correct, complete, clean, and alive"

Although most users appreciate the effectiveness of the industry database software, many teachers have difficulty when first using it because some functions on this software require many operations. All lesson plans and plans of teachers must be converted to PDF format before submission to avoid changing fonts, losing illustrations, and column frames. For older teachers who are professional group leaders and managers who must sign and approve electronically, they often have difficulty inserting signatures and stamping to approve lesson plans and plans.

Ms. Do Thi Du, Vice Principal of Yet Kieu Primary School, added that in the process of signing and approving digitized documents on the industry database software, if there are any changes or edits, the signer must access the system to cancel his or her signature. Only then can the submitter edit and submit for approval again from the beginning. "To overcome this situation, schools currently temporarily save documents on Google Drive, teachers only send them there once, and only after there are no more edits can they be imported into the industry database software for approval," Ms. Du shared.

Mr. Vu Xuan Truong, Deputy Head of the Planning and Finance Department (Department of Education and Training of Hai Duong province) said that the industry database system is provided free of charge. The information in this software is used uniformly throughout the education sector. Currently, the industry database in Hai Duong has been connected and shared with many data systems and applications. Of which, over 98% of the province's teacher and student records have been synchronized and authenticated with the National Population Database; automatically connecting reporting data with the database of the Ministry of Education and Training, the 10th grade high school entrance exam systems, high school graduation exams, etc.

To further enhance its effectiveness, the industry database software needs to continue to be upgraded, refined, and reduced for users, integrating additional functions such as school facilities management, optimizing the system to ensure access speed, and data processing. Management levels and schools regularly enrich data, update data in real time to ensure the criteria of "correct, sufficient, clean, and alive".