With the slogan of “Success for Every Learner,” the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and Library Services of TCI (TCI MoE) has outlined the Education Sector Plan 2013-2017 which builds on the progress made in the former Plan for 2006-2010 (TCI MoE, 2015a).

Located in the Caribbean region at the southern tip of the Bahamas chain, the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) is an archipelago of 40 islands and hundreds of cays with a small population. The majority of the population is concentrated in six of the larger islands, where fifteen public schools(1) – ten primary and five secondary schools – provide free and compulsory education for all children between the age of 4 and 16 years under theTCI Education Ordinance.

As a part of the five year plan, there is a strong strategic imperative “to improve the quality and accountability of Leadership and Management at all levels of the system […] both within the Ministry and also within the school system (TCI MoE, 2015b).” Due to the lack of access to readily available education statistics and other information, making evidence based decisions has been a challenging task for the TCI MoE (TCI MoE, 2015a). In response to the call for a centralized and robust Education Management Information System (EMIS), OpenEMIS was identified as an adequate solution that satisfies all the required features and functionalities addressed by the TCI MoE for a successful EMIS; including, to be cost-effective, user-friendly, easily customizable, secure, and supportive to the development of internal institutional capacity of the system.

As first step in the process, a comprehensive needs assessment and gap analysis was conducted at the TCI MoE in Providenciales and Grand Turk by the OpenEMIS team from Community Systems Foundation. Through engaging all key stakeholders in the process of mapping needs, identifying gaps, understanding education capacity building requirements and the human resource environment, the consultancy team has successfully analyzed and reported the requirements and recommendations for the successful implementation of OpenEMIS in TCI.