New comprehensive management system for schools

Own Correspondent

Advisory firm, Alinial Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe  is in talks  with the  Ministry of Primary and Secondary  Education  to implement a comprehensive  school management  system  in all public and private schools  throughout Zimbabwe in an effort  to improve efficiency, accountability and transparency in the  administration  of educational institutions.

The system is made to make tasks like enrollment, managing student data, managing timetables, tracking teacher and student attendance, collecting fees, managing former students, managing human resources, managing finances, and so on easier and more efficient.

Among other crucial components, the system’s features include the ability to collect, process, and analyze data.

The development was confirmed  by the Business Development Manager of Alinial Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe,Last Matema,  who stated that the organization developed this ICT solution for school management in response to significant problems impacting the country’s educational system, as documented in a number of official and private government publications.

The main obstacles are collecting fees, managing finances responsibly, being transparent about enrollment, making decisions based on facts, and managing student affairs transparently.

“…We are in the process of engaging the  Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education so that we may proceed on a full scale across the country.  We wish to compliment the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in its drive to digitalize the learning institutions in line with the National Development Strategy 1,” Matema told Business Times.

He added: “The current manual school management systems being employed in school exposes our educational sector to decisions based on stale and or outdated data by stakeholders as information retrieval is hectic and time consuming.

“It takes an average of three weeks  for a bursar to come up with the outstanding fees report, by the time it will come out,  it will not reflect the actual position as of that day, so a decision based on that report is misleading . With our system, live reports and real time data will be the basis for decisions at the schools.

“Key to note is the accountability of learners’ whereabouts , as you may know  most of the schools are on hot-sitting due to infrastructural challenges especially in high density suburbs and growth points and this exposes the students to sexual and drug abuse  especially secondary school going children.  Our system’s attendance module interacts with parents and guardians through SMSs alerts when the child attends and leaves the school premises, and it goes further to notify the parent or guardian on exceptional reports for example when the child misses class.”

The implementation of the School Management ERP System coincides with a national trend in which the majority of schools are facing increasing difficulties in gathering, analysing, storing, and retrieving data.

In light of this, Alinial Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe stated that schools must become aware of the need to collect and store data regarding environmental hazards, theft, and document displacement.

“We are approaching the rainy season,  we have heard stories of the whole school(s)  including student data and schools’ financial records swept away during Cyclone Idai. We are exposed in light of these natural disasters and we must be prepared. Our system stores data in the cloud, and data is recoverable in any disaster of any magnitude . The information that is kept on the cloud is always readily available beyond any form of unfortunate incident. “

According to Matema, the advisory firm plans to begin rolling out the system in the Eastern Highlands.

“We want to start by launching the system at the schools in the Eastern Highlands and the growth points and high density suburbs, for obvious reasons. The Eastern Highlands has been on the receiving front  on many natural disasters experienced in the country and the growth points and high density suburbs there is an urgent need for a system that accounts for students whereabouts in the wake of reported dug and sexual abuse of learners, “ he said.