The school challenge: Implementing the latest technology in academic management
A school’s academic management spans administrative, financial and student follow-up tasks. Learn how technology helps schools meet the challenge.
A school’s academic management involves a whole set of activities ranging from administrative and financial control to the pedagogical and behavioral follow-up of students. For this reason, having digital tools such as educational software is now essential to organize such a large amount of information.
Why? In this era of technology and information management, software specialized in the education sector is key to optimizing data administration. It allows the different management areas to be integrated so processes can be monitored effectively and the school can run smoothly.
In this article, we will discuss the main challenges of academic management today, the importance of administration with efficient processes and how educational software helps achieve it.
Table of contents
- Current challenges in academic management
- The importance of efficient academic management
- How to improve academic management in schools
- Academic management processes that technology can streamline
- Phidias: A state-of-the-art academic management system
Current challenges in academic management
Today, academic administration faces new challenges driven by the demands of the sector and technological progress. The most notable of these challenges are the following:
Centralizing information
Schools often have a separate system to manage each of the institution’s processes — for example, academic, billing and extracurricular processes. In reality, however, this creates major operational inefficiencies, since the databases of multiple different systems have to be updated with every change, making it harder to access information in a timely manner.
Timely and correct compliance with e-invoicing
In addition, schools need a legally authorized system to issue electronic invoices to third parties, in which they can also store historical information and create reports through data analysis. The goal is to keep detailed control over what has been billed, what has been collected and the
accounts receivable.
In this regard, an additional challenge educational institutions commonly face is finding an academic management system with the right filters and planning processes for running a school, since not all systems currently on the market meet these requirements.
Communication among members of the school community
Schools also frequently struggle to maintain smooth and effective communication among all members of the school community (parents, teachers, school leaders and administrative staff) regarding various institutional matters or each student’s individual situation — especially when they lack technological tools to personalize and automate these tasks.
The importance of efficient academic management
Every school’s main objective is to deliver high-quality learning.
Achieving this, however, requires not only implementing cutting-edge teaching methodologies, but also a system flexible and robust enough to facilitate the organization, assessment and supervision of the institution’s processes. This makes it easier to ensure efficient academic management that optimizes the work of both school leaders and teachers.
In addition, good academic management helps improve decision-making and teamwork by raising the quality of processes and fostering continuous communication. In short, it is an aspect that benefits every area of a school: pedagogical, administrative, financial and more.
But how can schools improve their management? Let’s take a look.
How to improve academic management in schools
As we know, managing a school takes time and effort. It demands strong organizational skills at both the academic and administrative levels, given the large amount of information generated by the different operations carried out at the institution.
Therefore, to improve academic management in schools, it is essential to use the new technological tools available today. Adopting them not only makes room for digitalizing processes and accessing information instantly, but also delivers operational efficiencies (as we saw in the previous point) that lead to significant cost savings.
In this way, implementing educational software helps to:
- Centralize information in a single database, so it can be administered and handled regardless of its source or format.
- Consult different types of data — historical and current, third-party and internal — with real-time updates.
- Visualize information through reports, panels, charts and dashboards that provide a complete view of academic management.
In short, educational software simplifies the coordination of all school activities.
Academic management processes that technology can streamline
Academic planning
Educational software helps schools effectively manage academic planning at each educational level (preschool, elementary, middle and high school) by:
- Keeping track of the strategic and curriculum plan
- Managing the assignment of teachers and homeroom teachers
- Configuring the assessment of each subject according to the grading scheme in use
- Controlling the dates for editing and viewing grades
- Scheduling automatic notifications for assignments and exams on the set dates
- Allowing event calendars to be configured
- Making it easy to create homework and support materials for students
- Providing the ability to create performance reports, as well as reports by subject, section or other valuable indicators
- Allowing integration with other platforms
In addition, these systems make it possible to create so-called “virtual classrooms.” These help teachers improve their teaching dynamics by providing interactive, user-friendly spaces where content such as videos, images and forms can be shared.
As a result, lessons can be planned in a more engaging and interesting way, encouraging student participation and higher academic performance.
Admissions and withdrawals
With these kinds of technological tools, schools can also streamline academic management for student admissions and withdrawals, validating each record through online processes and follow-up.
This way, parents can enroll their children or request a place for the next school year online, which means greater convenience and speed for them.
Recording grades and generating report cards
Undeniably, technology makes it easier to record and analyze academic results. With an academic management system, it is possible to generate personalized report cards in different formats, grading schemes or other criteria.
They can also be generated digitally (as PDFs), with their official authorization controlled through certificates, digital signatures and QR codes that make it possible to verify their authenticity.
Treasury (billing, collections and accounts receivable)
For an area as important as the treasury, academic management software for schools enables precise control of all the institution’s documents, making it easy for users to perform tasks such as checking and paying outstanding balances, recording credit or debit notes, generating invoices and more.
Specifically regarding invoicing, these digital platforms help carry it out efficiently and effectively because they:
- Reuse the information available in the different modules integrated into the software (for example, in Phidias, the Treasury module links financial information from the administrative, academic, extracurricular, transportation, admissions and any other applicable modules)
- Send generated invoices directly to the competent authority, so that once the validation process is complete, they are emailed to the responsible parties
- Update the process as local regulatory requirements change
- Allow custom invoice templates to be created according to the school’s requirements
Internal and external communication
Another aspect of academic management that technology undoubtedly improves is the centralization of communication. With educational software, announcements can be issued through several channels, allowing internal, bulk or individual messages to be sent, as well as notifications, announcements and circulars, among other things. Messages can also be scheduled for different times or dates, and meetings and tutoring sessions can be booked.
Follow-ups
Implementing educational software helps school leaders and teachers keep detailed track of all kinds of follow-ups — from tutoring reports, disciplinary and merit records, admissions and special cases to students’ eating habits.
All of this through customized settings and record notifications.
General school administration
As we have seen, academic management platforms streamline and improve school administration in general. Essentially, they make it possible to manage all the information and documentation related to students (academic performance, attendance, medical records, etc.), their families (guardians, contact details), the institution’s current financial situation and more.
This makes it possible to analyze useful statistics for administrative decision-making.
Phidias: A state-of-the-art academic management system
If you are wondering which software can offer you everything explained so far, we invite you to learn about Phidias, one of the most advanced educational software solutions available today.
Phidias is an academic management system whose purpose is to simplify school administration so schools can focus on their core mission: education.
Our software stands out for offering a high level of security, integration and support, adapting to the specific needs of each institution. Our cloud platform manages schools’ processes quickly, securely and intuitively, and is accessible from any device.
By implementing it, you can bring all your information together in a single system, ensuring it is always available whenever members of the school community need it.
Leave challenges and complications behind, and send us a message to learn more about how Phidias can optimize your school’s academic management! More than 17 years of experience and innovation stand behind us.
