# Introducing SEMIS: A Free, Open-Source DHIS2 App for Student, Staff and School Management **URL:** \ **Category:** Announcements - Annonces\ **Tags:** webinar, emis, education, events, semis\ **Created:** [28 October 2026 17:11 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/introducing-semis-a-free-open-source-dhis2-app-for-student-staff-and-school-management/77776 "2026-10-28T17:11:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![amuchanga](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/community.dhis2.org/amuchanga/32/50670_2.png) [@amuchanga](https://community.dhis2.org/u/amuchanga)\ **Post date:** [28 October 2026 17:11 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/introducing-semis-a-free-open-source-dhis2-app-for-student-staff-and-school-management/77776/1 "2026-10-28T17:11:21Z")
```auto ``` [![](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/uploads/default/original/3X/9/a/9a2dffbc12b6ded557cd132ce44df62ddb6d4413.png)](https://community.dhis2.org/t/77777) ```auto ``` ![SEMIS-Release](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/uploads/default/original/3X/e/5/e527c267d77fc190df66739b1b08993626b38002.png) _Adopted by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education as its national learner registry, SEMIS is being used to enroll learners across a school system of more than 40 million children. It gives education ministries one place to manage individual student, staff and school data, on the web and on Android devices, even without an internet connection._ The DHIS2 for Education team is pleased to announce that [SEMIS](https://education.dhis2.org/solutions/student-staff-school/), a free and open-source DHIS2 app for managing student, staff and school data, is now publicly available. Ministries of education can use SEMIS to enroll students and staff, track daily attendance, manage transfers between schools and plan the academic year. Because the app keeps records for individual students and staff, officials can combine them into the information they need for planning at every level, from schools to the national ministry. SEMIS is already in use nationally. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education has adopted the app as the learner registry, within [DNEMIS](https://education.dhis2.org/nigeria-launches-nationwide-education-data-system/), and enrollment of learners is underway across all 36 states and the FCT. SEMIS is developed and maintained by the HISP network: Saudigitus (HISP Mozambique), HISP Uganda, HISP Sri Lanka, HISP West and Central Africa and the DHIS2 for Education team at the HISP Centre, University of Oslo. ### **Release details** - **Current version:** 2.1 (web and Android, released 27 October 2026) - **DHIS2 compatibility:** DHIS2 versions 2.41 to 2.43 (tested on 2.41, 2.42 and 2.43) - **License:** BSD 3-Clause (free and open-source) ### **What SEMIS does** **Enrollment.** Schools can register students and staff and keep their records up to date over time. On Android, users can enroll new students and staff while offline. The records sync once the device is back online, with safeguards that prevent duplicate records. **Student and staff profiles.** Each student and staff member has a profile page that shows the full record on one screen. Each country can configure the page with its own tabs, panels and key indicators. **Attendance.** Teachers can take daily attendance on Android devices. Countries can choose to record only absences, which counts all other students as present. This saves teachers time and greatly reduces the amount of data that devices have to sync with the server. **Transfers.** When a student moves to a new school, the original school starts the transfer and the receiving school reviews and accepts it. SEMIS keeps a full history of each transfer. **Academic calendar.** Administrators can set up academic years and view school days, holidays, exam periods and breaks on a calendar. **Printing.** SEMIS can produce print-ready documents such as student ID cards, certificates, official forms, reports and labels. ### **How SEMIS was developed** SEMIS was built with ministries of education rather than for them. The app began in June 2023, when HISP groups from Mozambique, Uganda, Sri Lanka and West and Central Africa met with the HISP Centre at the DHIS2 Annual Conference, agreed on a shared design the next day and demonstrated a first version to ministries two months later. Since then, every release has been shaped by pilots led by the ministries themselves: the Ministry of Education and Training in Eswatini, the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in The Gambia, the Ministry of General Education and Instruction in South Sudan, the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education Sierra Leone and the Federal Ministry of Education Nigeria. In Rwanda, the Ministry of Education’s Karame attendance app was built on SEMIS with Save the Children and its innovation hub Waliku, and at its peak tracked daily attendance for about 2 million learners That experience shaped several features designed for real-world conditions: - **Bulk promotion.** Promoting a whole class to the next grade in one step, rather than one learner at a time, was the single most requested improvement from Eswatini and The Gambia over the earlier Tracker-based setup. - **Works without an internet connection.** Schools with limited connectivity can enroll students and staff offline and sync the records later. - **Lighter data loads.** The absence-only attendance option greatly reduces the data that devices store and sync. - **More reliable syncing.** SEMIS checks records before they sync and gives users clear error messages when something goes wrong. - **Attendance designed with teachers.** Teachers confirm every student’s status before submitting, the app warns about unsaved changes, and schools can switch to absence-only mode where that is faster. ### **Learning from large-scale implementations** Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education has adopted SEMIS as the learner registry within the Digital Nigeria Education Management Information System (DNEMIS), which is built on DHIS2. DNEMIS was launched nationally in July 2026 and covers more than 200,000 schools; as learner enrollment is completed, it will be the largest deployment of DHIS2 for individual-level data in the world. Running SEMIS at this scale is already shaping the app’s development: the absence-only attendance option and the checks on records before they sync were both designed for systems that handle very high volumes of data, and Nigeria’s use of its own name, DNEMIS, shows how countries can run SEMIS under their own identity. ### **Getting started** HISP groups can help ministries install, configure and adapt SEMIS to local needs, and they provide technical support after launch. - **Documentation:** [User Guide - DHIS2 Documentation](https://docs.dhis2.org/en/implement/education/semis/user-guide.html) - **For web app** **Download and Release notes: [Releases · Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-core · GitHub](https://github.com/Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-core/releases) Source code:** [GitHub - Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-core · GitHub](https://github.com/Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-core) - **For Android app Download and Release notes:** [Releases · Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-android · GitHub](https://github.com/Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-android/releases) **Source code:** [GitHub - Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-android: DHIS 2 data and tracker capture app for Android · GitHub](https://github.com/Saudigitus/dhis2-semis-android) - **Product page:** [SEMIS: Student, Staff and School Management](https://education.dhis2.org/solutions/student-staff-school) - **Webinar:** 12 November, 10 a.m. CET [_Meeting Registration - Zoom_](https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/xn-osxgCQMuSQMxbVvXFbA) - **Contact:** The DHIS2 for Education team at [emis@dhis2.org](mailto:emis@dhis2.org) > **Webinar: Introducing SEMIS: A Free, Open-Source DHIS2 App for Student, Staff and School Management Description** > > **Starts:** 12 November 2026 10:00 (Europe/Oslo)\ > **Ends:** 12 November 2026 11:00 (Europe/Oslo) Questions and feedback are welcome in the replies below. ---
**Author:** ![ellen](https://dhis2.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/community.dhis2.org/ellen/32/48478_2.png) [@ellen](https://community.dhis2.org/u/ellen)\ **Post date:** [29 October 2026 17:45 UTC](https://community.dhis2.org/t/introducing-semis-a-free-open-source-dhis2-app-for-student-staff-and-school-management/77776/2 "2026-10-29T17:45:55Z")
Great work on this app, @amuchanga and the EMIS team! I’m really looking forward to the webinar.