Education management information system for refugee response programs
/The Need
UNICEF's Joint Response Project (JRP) in Cox's Bazar addresses the educational needs of displaced populations in one of the world's largest refugee settlements. Managing education programs for 35,000+ adolescents across 4,590+ institutions in this challenging context required a sophisticated Management Information System (MIS) that could centralize student and educational institution records while supporting the unique operational requirements of humanitarian response.
UNICEF needed a comprehensive platform that could maintain a beneficiary database including detailed student records and GIS data for mapping service locations under the JRP program.
The system needed to support data collection and analysis through tools for form design, survey scheduling, mobile-based data collection, sampling, and staging—all while working reliably in the resource-constrained environment of Cox's Bazar.
Additionally, the platform required robust historical data capabilities for storing, searching, and analyzing project data across years, enabling UNICEF to track longitudinal outcomes and demonstrate program impact.
The challenge was to create an integrated system that could provide GIS mapping for visualizing beneficiaries and institutions geographically, while offering management dashboards with real-time tools for progress tracking, reporting, and KPI monitoring across this large-scale humanitarian education initiative.
The Solution
We designed and developed a full-featured Education Management Information System that has become the operational backbone of UNICEF's Joint Response Project, providing comprehensive data management and analytical capabilities for one of the world's most complex humanitarian education contexts.
The Beneficiary Database creates a centralized repository for student and educational institution records, including detailed GIS data that enables geographic analysis and service planning under the JRP program. The system maintains comprehensive profiles for each of the 35,000+ adolescents served, tracking their enrollment status, educational progress, attendance patterns, and outcomes.
Simultaneously, it manages records for 4,590+ institutions including learning centers, schools, and training facilities, capturing their capacity, services offered, staff information, and operational status. This centralized data architecture ensures all stakeholders have access to accurate, up-to-date information about beneficiaries and service delivery infrastructure.
The Data Collection & Analysis module provides comprehensive tools for form design, survey scheduling, mobile-based data collection, sampling, and staging. Field workers can design custom data collection forms tailored to specific assessment needs, schedule surveys across multiple locations and time periods, and use mobile devices to collect data from beneficiaries and institutions even in areas with limited connectivity.
The sampling tools ensure surveys are statistically sound and representative, while staging capabilities allow for data quality checks before final submission. This flexible data collection infrastructure enables UNICEF to gather the specific information needed for program management, donor reporting, and continuous improvement.
We implemented robust Historical Data capabilities providing storage, search, and analysis of project data across years. The system maintains complete historical records of beneficiary enrollment, attendance, assessments, and outcomes, enabling longitudinal analysis that tracks how adolescents progress through educational programs over time.
Program managers can search historical data to understand trends, identify patterns, and measure long-term impact. This historical perspective is essential for demonstrating program effectiveness to donors and informing strategic planning for future interventions.
The GIS Mapping functionality provides powerful visualization of beneficiaries and institutions across Cox's Bazar. Interactive maps show the geographic distribution of students, the locations of educational institutions, coverage gaps where additional services are needed, and how populations shift over time.
This spatial intelligence enables evidence-based decisions about resource allocation, facility placement, and service expansion, ensuring educational opportunities reach those who need them most.
The Management Dashboard delivers real-time tools for progress tracking, reporting, and KPI monitoring. Program managers, implementing partners, and UNICEF leadership can access customized dashboards showing enrollment trends, attendance rates, completion statistics, and key performance indicators. Automated reporting capabilities generate the comprehensive reports required by donors and stakeholders, reducing manual effort while ensuring accuracy and timeliness.
The platform's success is demonstrated by its scale: supporting 35,000+ adolescents across 4,590+ institutions, providing the data infrastructure for one of the largest humanitarian education programs globally.
The Challenge
The primary challenge was designing a system capable of operating effectively in the unique context of Cox's Bazar—a resource-constrained humanitarian setting with limited infrastructure, unreliable connectivity, and the operational complexities inherent in serving displaced populations.
The MIS needed to accommodate the fluid nature of refugee populations, with students enrolling, transferring, or departing frequently, requiring flexible data management that could track these movements while maintaining data integrity.
Building beneficiary databases that could manage 35,000+ student records and 4,590+ institution records required robust data architecture capable of handling complex relationships—students enrolled in multiple programs, institutions offering various services, staff working across facilities—while maintaining fast query performance for real-time dashboards and reports.
Implementing GIS-based mapping that could accurately visualize beneficiaries and institutions across Cox's Bazar required integrating geographic information systems with the educational database, geocoding service locations, and creating intuitive map interfaces that non-technical users could leverage for planning and decision-making.
Creating data collection and analysis tools that could support diverse survey types, custom form designs, and mobile-based data capture while ensuring data quality and consistency across multiple field teams presented significant technical and UX challenges.
The mobile application needed to function reliably offline and synchronize data accurately when connectivity was restored.
Building historical data analytics capabilities that could store years of project data, enable efficient searching across massive datasets, and support longitudinal analysis required careful database design, indexing strategies, and query optimization to maintain performance as data volumes grew.
Developing management dashboards that could serve different stakeholder needs—from field supervisors monitoring daily operations to UNICEF leadership tracking strategic KPIs—required sophisticated data aggregation, visualization design, and reporting automation that could transform raw data into actionable insights.
The Partnership
Our collaboration with UNICEF was driven by a shared commitment to ensuring displaced adolescents in Cox's Bazar have access to quality education and pathways to better futures.
We worked closely with UNICEF's education specialists, program managers, and field teams to understand the operational realities of delivering education in a humanitarian context.
The partnership involved extensive field engagement in Cox's Bazar to observe existing workflows, understand data collection practices, identify technology constraints, and design solutions that would genuinely support rather than complicate operations.
We consulted with teachers, center coordinators, and field monitors to ensure the MIS would align with how educational services are actually delivered.
We delivered comprehensive services including data migration from legacy systems, technical architecture design that balanced functionality with the operational constraints of the humanitarian context, and ongoing system maintenance ensuring the platform remains reliable as program needs evolve.
Our team built the complete technology stack—ASP.NET and MS SQL Server for the robust web platform, Angular for the dynamic frontend interfaces, and Flutter for mobile application development enabling offline data collection.
We integrated GIS capabilities for geographic visualization and implemented the data analytics tools that enable UNICEF to measure and demonstrate program impact.
We also provided training across the user hierarchy and established support mechanisms to ensure the platform continues to serve UNICEF's mission effectively as the JRP program evolves and scales.
The measurable success—supporting 35,000+ adolescents across 4,590+ institutions—demonstrates how this collaborative approach created a data infrastructure that enables UNICEF to effectively manage one of the world's largest humanitarian education initiatives while maintaining the accountability and impact measurement essential for donor relations and continuous improvement.
The Tech Stack
We built the platform using ASP.NET and MS SQL Server for the web platform, Angular for dynamic frontend interfaces, and Flutter for mobile application development. ASP.NET provides the robust, enterprise-grade backend framework capable of handling complex educational data management, user authentication, reporting, and API services at humanitarian scale. MS SQL Server ensures reliable, secure data management for tens of thousands of student records, institution profiles, historical data, and GIS information with the performance needed for real-time dashboards and complex analytics queries.
Angular delivers responsive, interactive web interfaces for the management dashboard, beneficiary databases, and administrative tools used by program staff. Flutter enables cross-platform mobile application development for data collection tools that field workers use to gather information from beneficiaries and institutions, with offline capabilities essential for the connectivity-challenged environment of Cox's Bazar.
The platform includes comprehensive services such as data migration from legacy systems, technical architecture optimized for the operational constraints of humanitarian response, and ongoing system maintenance ensuring reliability—all working together to provide the beneficiary databases, data collection and analysis tools, historical data analytics, GIS mapping, and management dashboards that enable UNICEF to effectively serve 35,000+ adolescents across 4,590+ institutions in Cox's Bazar's Joint Response Project.
