The South Africa Department of Education has launched a new system aimed at tracking the movements of pupils from school to school.

The national Learner Unit Record Information and Tracking System (LURITS) will assign each pupil a unique tracking number that will remain with the pupil throughout his or her school career, giving school officials accurate learner enrollment data, said Minister of Education Naledi Pandor.

"The tracking component of the system makes it possible to identify learners who exit one school and do not re-enter the system at another school, Pandor said. "The system will be able to identify the individual learners who have left the system and will be able to compile accurate profiles of these learners."

LURITS was developed by the State IT Agency at a cost of 136 million South African rand (US$16.3 million) and is expected to be operational by January 2010.

The system will contain more than 12 million individual learner records per year, and it is being implemented by schools across the country.