Using Technology to Improve Efficiency in School Operations Management

Aug 23 2022 | 6 minutes read

The value of leveraging technology in school operations cannot be overstated, as it helps to improve operations in a variety of ways.

Imagine running a 500-person company without cash registers, computerized inventories, or filing cabinets. Can you picture the chaos? While schools' primary responsibility is to educate learners, they need to be managed similarly to businesses in order to function efficiently. Managing a large financial budget along with a wide range of staffing requires effective tools utilized to make schools run better.

According to education workforce well-being report published in 2019, it was observed that administrative tasks have a negative impact on occupational well-being in schools; one of the key issues raised by the education workforce surveyed was that the volume of paperwork to be handled was reported to be large and a lot of it deemed to be repetitive and unnecessary.

Personally, I spent eight full years in the classroom as a subject matter expert in Chemistry, as well as a mid-level school leader managing school operations at various levels and I discovered that one aspect of the school business and processes that need urgent optimization via technology is the school operations management.

In this article, we will explore what school operations are, the advantages of school operations optimization through technology and how technology can be leveraged for efficient school operations management.

Let’s dive in…

What Are School Operations?

Schools are complex business operations and the triangulation of effective resource management and administration, robust governance and educational leadership are vital ingredients in successful schools.

School operations connote all the day-to-day activities that go on into running a school. 

The school operations team is usually in charge of a different array of non-instructional tasks, such as school finances, student transitions (such as to and from lunch and recess, arrival, dismissal, etc.), human resources, student recruitment, and enrollment, transportation, food service, emergency readiness, field trips, student health, state and local compliance, technology, facilities management, purchasing, and any school-wide events that require significant logistical support.

Advantages of School Operations Optimization with Technology

Schools are embracing new and cutting-edge technology solutions for education delivery and management. The availability of very effective and multi-faceted school administration software like prodigy school suites can be customized to serve the needs of students, teachers, and staff in every department. Below are some of the ways schools can benefit from a comprehensive end-to-end school operations management system like the one mentioned above;

1. Effective Resources Allocation: School automation software uses a cutting-edge, brand-new approach that fully automates all workflows to enhance learning delivery. reduces staff workload, facilitates resource pooling, eliminates paperwork, and enhances class schedules throughout the entire school.
2. Deepening of Student Learning: The goal of technology-enhanced schooling is to enhance pupils' academic performance. Leveraging the education modules, you can track a student's progress in real-time by managing their homework assignments, grades, report cards, and transcripts, among other things.
3. Optimizing Administrative Practices: Optimizing and automating administrative and academic procedures helps to increase effectiveness, saves time, and this does not necessarily require extensive and in-depth technology know-how to achieve. 
4. Data Asset Management: The education sector is one of the major sectors that generate a large amount of data on a day-to-day basis; hence data asset management is one of the critical operations that happen in schools. To make your school data operations more flexible, scalable, adaptable, and easy to manage and interpret, the opportunity to use a technological management system will be of very great advantage.
5. Comprehensive Reporting: Generating all kinds of reporting in accordance with rules and regulations of the institution can be made easy by the graphical presentation of school data using dashboard reports, charts, and graphs to facilitate quick decision-making.

In this 21st century, schools need to think outside the box and explore options and opportunities that technology in its various forms provides, to help scale teaching and learning as well as make the administration and running of school processes easier.

Olorunfemi Omotayo

Learning Experience Designer at Teachers Academy Africa

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