The Australian Education Reporter
Records & School Management Software
MOVING administrative tasks online can greatly streamline processes such as enrolments, financial management, and equipment bookings, making life easier for staff.
If implemented correctly, integrated cloud management solutions allow all school staff, teachers, parents and students can be connected.
Now, schools can offer live student profiles which includes attendance, achievement, and behavioural data.
Software management systems can help teachers and other school staff, but there are also risks if the solution is not fit-for-purpose.
There was the Victorian Education Department’s Ultranet project; this online platform promised to connect teachers, parents and students but technical issues meant it was rarely used after its 2010 rollout before being dumped in 2013.
NSW TAFE experienced a range of costly issues with its most recent LMBR system before cutting its losses and moving to a different provider, stating that “a modern, cloud-based system will enable students to easily manage their training records and allow us to adapt more quickly to new policy settings.”
WA public schools will be hoping for a better result, with a $32 million upgrade to the Department’s School Information System coming online.
According to the supplier, the new solution will compile all student records into a single enterprise database, which will be delivered via the State Government’s secure private cloud.
The new education management platform was expected to relieve schools of many current reporting requirements, such as census reporting that can now be drawn directly from the system.
WA schools were due to be moved to the new system from 2018.
Market researcher Technavio is forecasting massive growth in the global classroom management systems market between 2017 and 2022, driven by increasing emphasis on collaborative learning tools, rising adoption of cloud-based management tools, and growing government initiatives in digital learning techniques.
With teachers working more and more hours, any program that can reduce the administrative and planning workload should be a high priority for schools.