SAFSMS’ school records management system, when opted for by Nurul Bayan International Academy, helped in providing solutions by tackling excess work hours and record management issues. It has allowed for easy access and an easy overview of the school’s progress for its record.
Nurul Bayan is an international multi-lingual Academy of an Islamic orientation – it comprises of several units of education – Daycare, Playgroup, Preparatory, Kindergarten, Nursery Primary and Secondary schools. Most interestingly, it also accommodates special needs students in the special education unit. Their main initiative is to provide both quality western and Islamic education within a decent and conducive learning environment.
What were the Challenges?
Generally, their mode of school records management was done manually. Hence, being a disadvantage – causing a hectic end of term/session for staff and school management because manual representation caused an uproar in cost and taking up so much man hours. Mr. Kerry, Vice Principal Academics explained:
“Before this program, our work was cumbersome and unrealistic – it was like a manuscript that cannot be stored and there was no efficient back-up system in place, once our photocopies were gone, they were gone for good”.
Before SAFSMS’ school records management system, Nurul Bayan had been using several other systems for their management, unfortunately, not any of them had tackled their issues. As far as other similar programs were concerned, Nurul Bayan said that they still didn’t get what they wanted. Usama Thani, Vice Principal Admin says:
“We need systems like SAFSMS because of the computerization it serves – it gives the school admin the opportunity to track student performance – there is no package like SAFSMS and believe me, we have tried a lot of programs – they have a very strong technical support ”
How SAFSMS made things easier?
Mr. Kerry further explained that SAFSMS had proven to be very efficient and easy to use and that result computation takes much less time. He also said that they now have an effective backup system which has made staff worry less about losing data. Mr. Michael of the IT department Commented:
“The different departments now find it easier to network with one another in a centralized manner because of how convenient it is – as long as you are within the school, you can compute your student’s assessments both on or offline using even your phone”
What impact has SAFSMS made?
Referring back to the challenges and how SAFSMS has been of help, Kerry acknowledges that SAFSMS has certainly enhanced maximum effectiveness because by having this easy to use and centralized solution, record management is no longer a coherent and cumbersome task, as man hours are saved – Staff no longer have to spend so much time collating results.
SAFSMS’ school records management system has also had a general impact on parent- school communication, parents can get in touch with staff at any time – saving both parties valuable time – they can also easily get engaged in their child’s school activities via the parent portal which then encourages students to be more efficient in their performance, being aware that their parents are keeping a close eye.
What’s Next?
As Nurul Bayan has already adopted the use of E- learning, they have distributed customized laptops to their students so they are able to use it efficiently. Even though they have an e-learning platform and have given laptops to their students to make use of, they still cannot say that the students are performance-driven because they still cannot monitor and control student activities – so they want to take technology to the next level by having an efficient E-learning platform which would actually encourage their students to perform better.
