School Management Software

Education system forms the backbone of every nation. The success of this system lies in correct knowledge dissemination process blended with smooth and efficient functioning of management system. Technology at schools can play a very crucial role in streamlining the whole system of education. Let us talk about a few issues related to this. Exploring the resons why IT is not just a subject to be tought but an effective tool to be used.

MAJOR LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOLS to implement a School Management Software.

Mental blocks

Schools are doing well without IT
It adds a lot of cost on school.
Our teachers and other users are no techno savvy.
Not all our parents are IT enabled so what�s the point.
Who will manage the data.

LET US SEE WHAT A SCHOOL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE / SCHOOL ERP CAN DO FOR SCHOOLS

1. Complete organization of data within the school.

Manual work most of the time is Redundant, Incomplete, Improper, Not available when required. Dependency factor is always high in this case. Further handling old files is difficult and unhealthy. Hand written data is sometime not readable.

2. Streamlining the educational process :
The manual way of working gives us total freedom and flexibility �which results in a less protocol or standardized way of working. An IT solution helps in proper documentation and stardardisation of education process by setting up protocols for each and every process of schooling. We document and manage much more information than the manual process. Accessing the documented information is again a very easy process.

3. Effectively increasing the productivity and efficiency of the office management staff.

Schools experience that the productivity of the same office staff increases after implementation of IT solutions. They can work out things well in time and are free to take care of the other smaller issues in school management. The same office work can be handled by less staff thereby allowing the rest of the man power to be deputed in other productive works.

4. Reducing the paper work to a great extend thereby making you eco friendly and the process cost effective.

In a school since we manage information of thousands of users at a time against a number of transactions and activities, the paper usage in very high for collection, saving and distribution of such information. Moreover the multiple copies of the data multiplies the usage. An IT solution with a good mechanism for the information processing and sharing saves a significant amount of paper for the school which in tern in not just cost effective but is eco friendly as well.

5. Strengthening relationship with parents by maintaining a proper information system.

Communication and transparency always play a key role in forming a healthy relation ship with parents and also add to their satisfaction. Properly working information system helps us making better use of parent teacher meetings as the crucial time of personal interaction is not consumed in just accessing the basic information and setting up the agenda.

Some schools are also using their web sites and portals to keep their parents informed about the latest in the school and facilitating their knowledge sharing with smartly designed tools.

6. Saving a lot of Man hrs, which directly means saving a lot of money.

Automation of basic procedures in school save a lot of man hrs which directly reflects to expenditure of the school. FEE, Admission, Payroll, stock

7. Increasing the reach and effectiveness of teachers by making them work on their core issue of imparting education instead of working on data management and admin related issues in the school and while at home.

8. Automation of important units like fees, library and stock can effectively eliminate any ambiguity and loss of property and liquidity of the school.

9. Reducing a lot of communication cost on various communication based processes in the school.

If planned properly a single point school management solution can eliminate redundant entry of data at various units in the institution.

By Vishal Bhatnagar
Dreamteam

Stand Alone Verses ERP solution for schools.

(This report is based on the survey with Schools EDP officers handling school ERP and Other software in school )

Defination of School ERP : A single software managing all aspects of schooling without redundancy and proper inter module data exchange. The data is managed centrally. The moment we think about school automation we think of multiple software, one for fee, another software for library and so on. Carefully looking at the school we will easily conclude that a educational institute is a complete city within itself. We have functionality starting from HR to finance and a lot of other issues. From school inventory, tuck shop, examinations we have to manage a lot. So trying to implement automation individually leads us to dealing with multiple software and multiple vendors and a situation where we have basically manualised our school system with computers.

Stand alone software for school can not only be very difficult to manage but also can add a lot of redundancy in data entry and ambiguity of information within same organization. E.g. when a student takes admission we have to enter the name in various software that we are using like library, fee, examination section software and so on. So basically there is a lot of redundant work in this case. On the other hand there may be a case when a student already taken TC from the school is still reflecting in the Library software or the other software implemented for various other modules. In absence of a centralized software the procedure of getting clearance from various sections for the students still remains tedious and time consuming.

A properly planned single point integrated system (School ERP / Education ERP) can facilitate zero redundancy, inter module information exchange and thereby a lot of savings in the form of time and manual efforts. Following comparison report is on software implementation at various.

Stand alone School software
School ERP
1.
Stand Alone: Redundancy of data entry
ERP : No redundancy
2.
Stand Alone : Ambiguity of information as different software may show different values for same thing
ERP: No ambiguity as the data is served from central location. Same logic of processing keeps away any such ambiguity.
3.
Stand Alone : No inter module communication. For example there will be no way for the library software to know if the caution money for the library is collected at fee counter for a particular student.
ERP: School ERP systems are specially designed for inter module information sharing. Since all module use the same database and business logic all the modules can interact with each other seamlessly.
4.
Stand Alone : Data security is generally an issue with stand along software as the data base is directly accessible by the users. There are always chances for accidental or deliberate loss of data.
ERP : Generally the data is only accessible only through the software interface in a controlled manner. The server is not in direct access of the users. So critical information is always intact.
5.
Stand Alone : Central backup for the entire system is not possible
ERP : Backup can be managed centrally with a great ease.
6.
Stand Alone : Different approach and interfacing for different modules.
ERP : Generally similar interfacing approach for all modules. Makes it easy for the top level management to interact.
7.
Stand Alone : Physical movement of data is required for reporting.
ERP : Multiple access point can eliminate physical movement of reports and other data.
8.
Stand Alone : The dependency level even for routine information is higher in stand alone applications.
ERP : Routine information issues are generally available with required users without dependency.
9.
Stand Alone : No possibility for developing a common business logic.
ERP : Runs on a common business logic for the institution. `
10.
Stand Alone : Easy to implement
ERP : The implementation period is a bit lengthy`
11.
Stand Alone : Low initial investment but higher recurring expenditure in terms of man hrs and usage of stationary for sharing routine information.
ERP : Comparatively high initial investment but low recurring expenditure in man hrs and information sharing throughout the institution.

Based on the implementation at various schools like Delhi Public School, Jodhpur, St. Annes School, Jodhpur , Rashtriya Indian Military College (Dehradun), Whelam Boys School, Dehradun and VDJS (Hissar) and Bhartiya Vidya Bhavans,Jodhpur we have produced the comparison between two different approach for school automation. Most of these schools have upgraded from stand alone software to a full fledged ERP for schools.
School Automated by Dreamteam

School Administration Software for Residential Schools

School Administration in case of a residential school is like running a small city. Unlike the day schools where it is more of less about academic automation, fees and library the administration of a residential school requires a lot of other issues to be taken care. Like

1. Hostel Management System
2. Point of Sale / Student Store Management System
3. Mess Management system
4. Gate Security System
5. Laundry Management System
6. Imprest account / pocket money management system
7. Offline intranet based mail system
8. Interconnection of school system with web site on batch processing basis.

and similar other changes..

We have done a extensive study and implementation with one the leading Residential Schools for Girls (VDJS) and Another Leading Boys' residential school (Welham Boys School) have come up with a unique and practical approach for residential school management with software.

Some of the important taks being handled there in the schools are

1. Connecting the far away parents with the school using a campus connected and updated interactive web site of the schools.
2. Interconnecting the departments with proper information exchange without repeated work and ease.
3. Simple to implement and adopt solution with less hassles of implementation and maintenance.
4. Elimination the dependency on 24hrs dedicated internet connection by providing useful tools like INTRANET VIRTUAL MAIL SERVER.

We are glad to recieve coperation and guidlines from

Vidya Devi Jindal School : CBSE based Girls' Residential School
Student Strength : Around 1500
Location : Hissar, Haryana (India)

Welham Boys' School : ICSE based Boys' Residential School
Student Strength : Around 850
Location : Dehradoon, Uttaranchal (India)

Birla Vidya Mandir : CBSE based Boys Residential School
Student Strength : Around 800
Location : Nainital, Uttaranchal (India)

RIMC : Rashtriya Indian Military College
Student Strength : 250
Location : Dehradun, Uttaranchal (India)

LKSEC : CBSE based Coeducation Residential School
Student Strength : Around 1500
Location : Gotan, Rajasthan (India)

SSB : Sainik School Balachadi
Student Strength : Around 700
Location : Balachadi, Gujrat (India)
>
Click here for a very carefully reviewed School Administration Software