FEATURE
SIIMS uses AI to generate predictive insights, identify at-risk learners and personalize learning pathways. Can you share examples?
The most exciting transition for me is moving from information to intelligence. A traditional system might tell you that a student missed five classes. AI allows us to ask a much more important question: What does that pattern mean?
Suppose attendance is declining, academic performance is also declining, and perhaps the student is increasingly absent from remedial activities. Those individual pieces of information become much more meaningful when connected. The system can help identify a learner who may require attention before the situation becomes a serious academic problem.
This changes the role of data. Instead of waiting until the end of the term to produce a report showing that a student performed poorly, educators can potentially receive an earlier indication that intervention may be necessary. This is particularly important to me because I believe technology should give teachers more time to teach, not more reports to prepare.
I also see huge potential in conversational AI. Imagine a school director asking:“ Which classes have experienced a significant decline in attendance this month?” Or:“ Which students are showing both declining attendance and academic performance?” Or:“ How much did we collect in fees this week compared with the previous week?”
Instead of navigating several menus and compiling spreadsheets, the institution can interact with its data naturally. That is where I believe AI can genuinely transform education management.
How did you encourage adoption among teachers, administrators and other stakeholders?
I have learned throughout my ICT leadership career that technology adoption is fundamentally a people issue. You cannot simply deploy a system and tell people to use it.
Another lesson has been that different schools have different ways of doing things. SIIMS is therefore custom-developed.
during rollout and continued providing handson support. We also listened. Teachers know their workflows better than the developer does. Sometimes a feature that looks perfect technically does not fit the reality of a classroom. That feedback is extremely valuable.
Another lesson has been that different schools have different ways of doing things. SIIMS is therefore custom-developed. We do not tell every institution,“ This is how you must operate.” Instead, we understand the institution’ s processes and configure the platform to support them.
My experience has taught me that Digital Transformation succeeds when users can see the benefit. If a teacher sees that a process that previously took 30 minutes now takes five minutes, adoption becomes much easier.
SIIMS handles large volumes of personal and institutional data. How have you approached privacy and cybersecurity?
This is an area I take very seriously because education systems hold extremely sensitive information. We are dealing with student information, academic records, parent information, staff information and, where biometrics are used, highly sensitive identity information.
The first principle is therefore privacy by design. We do not believe everyone should see everything. A teacher should see what is necessary for teaching. A parent should see information relating to their child. Finance officers should access relevant financial information. HR should have access to staff records. Management requires broader institutional dashboards.
Role-based access, authentication, audit trails, secure communication, backups and controlled data access are therefore important components of the platform. For biometric and facial recognition technologies, we also need to be particularly deliberate about why the technology is being used, what information is collected, who can access it, how it is protected and how long it is retained.
At Merishaw, for example, we conducted demonstrations and training, supported users
The principle is simple: Technology must earn people’ s trust before people will trust technology. www. intelligentcio. com
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