There is no institution or establishment which remains untouched by technological advancements. One such development is school management system software, which helps to manage everyday activities of schools easily and efficiently.

While opting for this software, you must be very careful as choosing the right school management system software is important for long-term efficiency and other benefits. While selecting such software, you ought to consider several things such as features, functionality, pricing and the provider’s experience in this field. Don’t just get carried away with one attractive feature. Do  a complete assessment depending upon your needs and ensure that the software is worth it.

Here are few things to consider while looking for school management software.

Constant Upgrades

Technology moves at a fast pace. So, when selecting school management software, it is necessary to ensure it will get timely updates. Timely updates will ensure you will have the latest features available.

Reliability

Before choosing a school management system software, you are supposed to test it. If you are a school owner, then you must try to know how long other schools have been using this software and whether it is working according to their needs. Picking up a software that can be dependable for a minimum of 5 years would be great.

Flexibility

One of the main things to consider while selecting the school management software is flexibility. When you are going to adopt some software for your school, it is necessary to know its flexibility level. The software should adapt to changes according to the needs of school, not the other way round. A software might be the best in the market. But if not suitable for your needs, it’d be useless to you.

Long Term Support

Make sure that the company you choose as a provider of your software is a well-established one having years of experience in this field. In this way, you won’t have to face any difficulty in getting essential documents or records. Moreover, you won’t have to depend on any individual if you face any problem.

Scalability

Your chosen software must be designed in a way that it can scale depending upon the requirements. As the school grows, the data will also increase. The number of students, staff, and parents accessing this application will keep rising as time goes on. So, if the application is not scalable, it becomes useless. To find whether it is scalable or not, just check the track record mentioned earlier.

Ease of Use

To enjoy the maximum benefit from a management software, it should be user-friendly. Teachers will find it difficult to adopt and it will end up in a mess rather than making the work easier.

Impact on Learning

The main aim of a school is to provide knowledge to their students. So, the solution you pick up should enhance or assist with student learning. It should show you student performance intelligently. It would be advantageous to have features such as teacher improvement modules, performance monitoring, etc, There can be automated assessment tests of different types which help improve student learning.

Useful Features

It’s really important to check if the features of the software are useful for you. The features should be capable of solving your problems. Having fewer features that are 100% useful is better than having lots of features of which only 20% are useful.

So, before choosing quality school management system software, consider the above mentioned points as it might be helpful for you to avoid costly mistakes.

If you have been to a school managed by school management system software then you must have realized how easy things get done there. The school management system software is developed so as to simplify daily work. It also goes to an extent of the simplifying assessment system. Although it comes with its share of advantages and disadvantages, is the school management system software really a boon to the schools these days? Let’s find out.

Also Read: Can a Smart School Software Fill Learning Time Gaps?

1. Maintenance of records

One of the prominent tasks to be done by the school authorities and staff is to maintain records of each student. This also means keeping a track of all the activities starting from admission till the exams.

Relying on school management software helps a lot as it makes things quite easier and saves on a lot of time. You don’t have to flip pages in register to find the required data. You are just a click away from all the useful data about a student.

2. Reduces communication gap between teachers and parents

Face-to-face meetings between students and teachers take place twice or thrice a year. This leaves less scope for discussing student’s progress with their parents. But with a school management system software, it is possible to do communication through messages, calls or emails which increases teacher – parent interaction.

Choosing advanced communication methods are an excellent way of giving all the necessary information about a student to their parents in detail. Moreover, it gives the parents boundless opportunities to keep track of their child’s performance and intellectual growth.

3. Reduced efforts during and post exams

As exams come closer, teachers are burdened with a lot of paperworks and preparations. Preparing an exam schedule, taking mock tests, helping students to revise – the list practically never ends.

But with school management system software by their side, teachers can save a lot of valuable time and complete tasks on time. Calculation of marks as well as a performance graph of the student gives more than sufficient information to track his or her progress.

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4. Effortless administration and data management

Get away with all the worries you might have about data of the school being lost. The software comes with updates where the data is stored locally, on the database as well as on the Cloud to make sure it never wipes out permanently.

The features are user-friendly and easy to learn so that a newbie can learn within minutes without much confusion.

5. Each comes with its share of disadvantages

Talk of any software, and you will surely find some of the flaws. Likewise, talking about school management system software, they do come with a hefty price which is unavoidable.

Other than this, due to increasing virus attacks, there is always a risk of software damage, leading to deletion of useful data. Many a times, reasons like slow internet connection and software performance can hamper the quality of work.

Having discussed about the pros and cons of school management system, it is obvious that the strengths overweigh the drawbacks. Overall, the school management system software will surely be a boon for teaching institute because of its flexibility, good performance and security at every level.

Private education and learning in Dubai are regulated by Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), which may also include the school your child studies in or the school you work in. With KHDA assessing the schools, you can know how good the performance of a particular school is just by looking at their rating.

If you are not familiar with KHDA, here is a glimpse of what KHDA is and the role it plays in improving the performance of private schools in Dubai:

KHDA, which is a part of Government of Dubai, plays a pivotal role in ensuring quality education to private schools in Dubai.  KHDA monitors all institutions under private education sector of Dubai. The main motive of KHDA is to develop the education sector of Dubai to meet international standards, so that students would be well prepared to meet the fast moving world. KHDA has hence set some guidelines for the schools they monitor to follow.

How KHDA Monitors Schools?

KHDA ensures quality education to students using Dubai School Inspections Bureau (DSIB) and Regulations and Compliance Committee (RCC). These are subsidiary bodies of KHDA with specific duties.

DSIB

Dubai School Inspections Bureau (DSIB), is a team of school inspectors who visit the private schools in Dubai frequently to ensure the quality standards are met consistently. DSIB submits ratings of each inspected school, which would then be published in the KHDA website. These reports are usually submitted by DSIB in September.

While assessing the schools in Dubai, DSIB judges them based on a four-point scale. The four levels on the scale are:

  • Outstanding-When the performance of schools is exceptionally well.
  • Good-When the school meets expected educational standards in Dubai.
  • Acceptable-This level of performance of schools is acceptable in Dubai; however, the schools are expected to perform above this level.
  • Unsatisfactory-This is when quality of performance by schools in Dubai are below the expected level. Schools would have to take necessary measures to improvise their standard in terms of performance or practice at this level.

RCC

KHDA’s Regulations and Compliance Committee (RCC) is responsible for inspecting private schools in Dubai to ensure that they follow KHDA guidelines, which are mandatory. That is also an effort to fulfill KHDA’s aim to develop the standards of private schools in Dubai.

Apart from setting standards for improving performance of schools, KHDA has also set guidelines in terms of advertising by schools and for events and field trips conducted by schools. It is necessary for the schools to let KHDA know when they are planning to market or advertise the schools in any media.

KHDA rankings are not based on how much money has been invested by schools.  It is based on the right management and the ways adopted to improve performance and standards of schools.

Now if you are looking forward to improve your schools’ performance, here are some practices of schools that KHDA is looking upon in 2014, to assess the schools:

1. Taking Care Of Special Education Needs

In a school, there may be children with different learning abilities.  In 2014, KHDA plans to focus on schools, which attend to the needs of children who have difficulty in learning, or children who are differently abled or have special talents.  KHDA would look upon:

  • Syllabus modified by school, relevant equally for normal children and children who have difficulty in learning.
  • The schools should support students with special needs or disabilities, preparing them to face the world.

2. School Management System

Many schools with less monetary support may think that it is not possible for them to afford to have a good school management system.  However, having an effective school management system can have its own advantages.  It makes work easier and the employees of the school would be able to save time for other activities, hence increasing the productivity and reducing expenditure.  Better school management can be done by implementing

  • RFID School Bus Tracking System
  • Work Force Management etc.

3. EncouragingArabic & Islamic Education

Since Government of Dubai has taken initiatives to protect the tradition and heritage of the country, KHDA is giving importance on appointing efficient Arabic and Islamic teachers to improve the performance of students in Arabic and Islamic Education in private schools.

4. Appointment of qualified teachers

As an approach in developing the education sector of Dubai, DSIB would be inspecting whether private schools in Dubai are hiring qualified teachers.  DSIB would assess the teachers based on their

  • Knowledge on the subject
  • Ability to promote creative and imaginative skills of students apart from books
  • Approach towards students
  • Teaching methods and ability to plan the next step
  • Ability to encourage self-management in children

5. Students’ Personal & Social Development

KHDA focuses on the development of students on personal and social front. Therefore, in 2014, KHDA would look upon the measures taken by teachers of private schools in Dubai in encouraging

  • Leadership qualities in students
  • Discipline and self-management skills
  • Humanity and love towards humans, animals and environment
  • Positive response towards advices
  • Healthy lifestyle

By other countries taking up stands such as Government of Dubai and KHDA, it is possible to improve their education sector, thereby, creating an efficient work force, adding to the economy of the country.

Is your school finding it difficult to cope up with KHDA standards?

As the inspections happen very frequently, it is important that schools monitor their quality standards throughout the year. This is where Real-time Institution Management System (RIMS) from Edsys provides schools with an advantage. The integrated modules in this system ensure that the school authorities are notified when there is a compromise in the quality standards of a particular school.

But in order to enjoy the benefits of the KHDA Inspection software, a school will have to employ Real-time Institution Management System (RIMS). It is a comprehensive system that makes the overall management of your school easy. There are smart card solutions, GPS Tracking System, Attendance Management, School App and a lot more systems that ensure ease of management as well as student safety.