Each One Teach One

School Management software benefits not just the school administration but also, the teachers, students and parents by allowing them anytime anywhere access

Nehru World School is an English medium co-educational School affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Established in 1978, it is amongst the first schools in India to introduce Bio-Technology as a subject at +2 level, the only school in Uttar Pradesh to introduce KYB (Know Your Body) - a US based primary program which enables children to sense right and wrong through exploration and observation.

The School had unique administrative and data needs relating to the students. They wanted a custom student dashboard for administrator which should contain all relative information of a particular student on a single view i.e. Student's personal profile, academic performance from the year of admission to present year, remarks given by different teachers, library information etc.

Proper Lesson Plan Management was required for teachers of the school where a teacher could plan the complete syllabus beforehand. Teachers needed a tool to plan what to teach in a particular class on a specific date; how much to cover in a particular class and manage the subjects being taught as per Class and Section. Certain distinctive features were also demanded by the school such as Different Type of Cards and Reports (Library, Fee etc.) with Student's Enrolment Number, Bar Code, etc. which could be generated from ERP and could be printed at school itself. That bar code could be used to reduce manual typing work and an automatic syncing of Staff Attendance with Substitution Module was also demanded, wherein their biometric system was synced with Applane, for automatically recording attendance and marking substitutions.

Applane Product Specialists came to the solution by designing exactly what was needed by Nehru World School. They compiled all the student information for all academic years in limited time effectively. "We analyzed the flow of process, grasped the requirements and after lots of reconsiderations we gradually designed the Lesson Plan Management. We completely customized the module as per their requirements," says Yogesh Agarwal, president, Applane.

Even different type of cards (Library Card, Fee Card, Transport Card) with Student's Enrolment No Bar Code written on it were generated from ERP and could be printed at school itself. The bar code reduced manual typing work. "We synced their bio-metric system with Applane so that they only need to punch their attendance, rest all process is handled automatically by Applane. They need not to worry about substitutions. Applane automatically does all the work," adds Agarwal. Founded on May 2012, Applane Solutions is one of a kind Education ERPs and is not inspired from western concepts. Thanks to its high degree of customizability - Applane was shortlisted by CBSE as one of the top software vendors - a testament to Applane's applicability to the Indian education landscape. Also, Applane is one of the pioneers of result generation as per the CBSE's CCE guidelines

Functions of School Management
Software
There exist many activities and processes that schools invest a lot of time and resources in. Without automation software, these activities have to be repeated every year/quarter and following that need to be reviewed for accuracy. School Management Software automate all such activities and drive efficiencies higher by allowing the schools to divert the resources previously being wasted on repetitive, mundane activities like time-table generation, fee collection, student information management and result generation to name a few.

Pricing of this Software
Another important player in the market is Fedena which is a complete student information system on the cloud It is meant for next generation of education institutes and has been recently adopted by Government of Kerala in with India 15000 Schools and 7 million+ students along with IIM Indore, IIT BHU, Aditya Group of Institution, Fab India School and Government of Kano state, Nigeria with 4000 Schools showcasing its global reach.

There are two models of operation for Fedena -open source business model and commercial model. "Open source product is being downloaded and used by more than 65,000+ entities worldwide (approx 200 downloads per day). This open source model helps us in creating the eco-system of freelancers, marketing etc. Also it enables other people to make business, learn and use for free in their institutes. In the commercial version we have our product and also allow third party companies to develop apps/ plugins on top of Fedena, that is, we allow others to innovate and make money by using our framework / product. We also have API's which will enable any company/individual to integrate their product with Fedena," says Abdulla Hisham, Director, Fedena. The firm is growing at 300% year on year and is looking forward to be one of the few companies to exit at billion dollar valuation from India.

The pricing is categorized based on the services chosen and starts from $900. However, there are still reasonable option available in the market at `30 per student per month with iSchool launched by CEON Solutions which is an Ahmedabad based Integrated Education Process Management (EPM) Solutions and Consultancy provider.

Need of the hour
Educating the customers is the prime challenge in this sector. The industry players typically start with a small implementation whose scope invariably increases as the clients begin to use the solution. Since the concept is relatively new in the Indian education landscape, there is constant requirement for upgradation to make them more applicable for Indian educational clients.

What does School Management Softwares 

effectively achieve?
Complete automation of all operations
Creation of College's Tech Savvy Image
Effective communication between teachers, students, administrators and parents
Best Possible resource optimization
Centrally stored information with zero redundancy
High level data security
Cost effective one point solution for total school management
Multiple Campus Management
Collaborate with students and other users via text, audio and/ or video anytime