Technology is changing so fast that it almost seems like every day we have something new on the market. These changes have a huge impact on every aspect of our lives, and the learning sector is no exception.
So, it’s not strange that every owner of an educational centre asks themselves, “Should I choose a school management system or a learning management system?”. If you have the same doubt, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, you will find everything you need to know about the difference between the school management system (SMS) and the learning management system (LMS) and which one is more suitable for your centre.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
What is School Management System
A school management system (SMS) is software specifically designed to manage and support your daily tasks like student data management, tracking student attendance, finance management, new student enrolments, data reporting and others. SMS can help you and support all of your administrative and non-administrative challenges and tasks.
Key Functionalities of SMS
1. Student Management
One of the main features of a school management system is to manage and organize student information like records, enrolment, attendance, grades, etc. Thanks to this function, you will reduce the time and effort spent on these tasks.
2. Student Attendance Tracking
Attendance tracking is one of the most relevant metrics for every educational institution because it can have a huge impact on identifying students who are struggling. With the school management system, you can track student attendance in real time and keep an eye on student progress and engagement.
3. Fees Payment Management
SMS is a true game-changer when it comes to managing the school finances. You can easily monitor and track fees collection, issuing receipt and even visualize your finance performance in one click.
4. Reporting and Analytics
A school management system lets you get useful information about the most important metrics such as student’s attendance, new enrollments, retention rate and makes it easy to analyze on the performance.
Advantages of SMS
Enhanced efficiency. One of the most significant advantages of the school management system is reduced risk of errors and saving time which substantially improve the general efficiency.
Better communication. Thanks to automation in sending notifications and messages, you won’t have to worry about forgetting to inform students or parents and general communication will improve.
Higher quality of data management. A school management system will help you improve managing any important data and statistics.
Improved financial management. Anything from tracking student fees, generating invoices, and receiving payments will be more organised and standardised with a school management system.
What is Learning Management System
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application anticipated to help you with organising academic processes like creating the curriculum and tracking students’ behaviour and progress.
Usually schools and other learning centres use this tool to conduct online exams, track student progress, and organise online virtual classrooms and other activities. Moodle, Schoology, and Blackboard Learn are some of the most widely used LMSs in educational institutions.
Let’s have a look at how a learning management system can perform.
Key Functionalities of LMS
A learning management system will be handy for you when working on any academic activity. It will help you make the learning process easier and smoother.
We’ve prepared a list of key functionalities:
Monitoring progress and performance;
Increasing accessibility without geographic limitations;
Personalising the online training and learning experience;
Effectively updating modules and curriculum.
Advantages of LMS
Innovation and creativity. Probably the biggest advantage of LMS is that it gives more opportunities to learn and go beyond the traditional classroom. At the same time, this refers to both—students and teachers.
Improved reporting and assessment. LMS provides a precise tracking tool that helps educators better understand students’ challenges, strengths, and weaknesses.
Straightforward. LMS is really easy to use and provides smooth access for users.
There is only one question left.
SMS vs. LMS: Which Is The Best For You?
The main difference between an SMS and an LMS is that an SMS focuses on managing administrative tasks, while an LMS is focused on facilitating teaching and learning activities.
In order to decide which suits you the best, depending on the needs of your educational institution. If your focus is on teaching and learning, then an LMS would be suitable for you. However, if the primary concern is to manage administrative tasks, then an SMS would be more appropriate. In some cases, both systems can be used together to provide a complete solution for educational institutions.
If you think you need a school management system, check out AOneSchools—a school management system with more than 2,000 satisfied education centres and 150,000 active users.
Get in touch with us today and find out how we can make your everyday work easier!
4 Ways A School Management System Can Boost Your Education Business
As the owner of an education centre, your main goal is to see your business grow. The truth is, the education business is getting more competitive by the day. To remain at the forefront of the education industry, it is crucial to stay up to date with the latest trends.
The school management system is a new revolution that is not only time-effective but also cost-effective. Making it one of the best tools to assist you in running an education centre. In this article, we will be looking at 4 simple but effective ways to grow your education business by implementing such systems.
Table of Contents
Challenges Most Education Centre Face In Malaysia
The greatest challenge most school owners face is relying on manual operations. Hence making it difficult to track student management, administrative tasks, and general school progress.
Also, parents want to be kept abreast of the progress of their children’s performance in school, as well as children’s attendance and class schedules. Failure to provide these basic services can result in losing students to competitors.
Below are some other challenges that education centres in Malaysia are still struggling to find solutions to:
Relying on paper-based processes
Lack of analytical data to evaluate the business performance
Lack of a proper system to evaluate teachers’ performances
Not having a sophisticated payment system for invoices and finances
Employing more administrative staff for daily operations
Unable to connect with parents informing them about their children’s well-being at school
How To Grow Your Education Business?
To make your school grow, the three key things you need to focus on: school management, staff management, and student management. Once you can get these three things right, there is a high chance of succeeding in your education business.
As a school owner, tracking the business metrics of your education centre is essential. Having data to work with will help you identify the areas that need improvement and develop insights on what to do next.
Also, parents are looking for schools with high educational standards, organised management, and the safety of their kids.
Whether you are looking for ways to manage your admin and teacher or seeking ways to make school operations more effective, you need school management software to achieve that.
4 Ways A School Management System Can Help To Grow Your Education Business
If you are not tapping into the benefits of using software to facilitate proper school management already, below are some reasons why you should start today.
1. Cutting Down on Overhead Costs
Instead of hiring more administrators to get some basic paperwork done, did you know that there is software to handle that for you? All you need to do is contact a school management system company in Malaysia, and you will be surprised at how much money you would save just by doing that.
2. Saves the Time of Teachers and Administrators
Working with a reputable software company can help you automate most jobs that would have consumed the time of teachers and administrators. You can automate things like attendance management, fee collection and finances, timetable creation, and create a better way of communicating with parents.
3. Makes Life Easier for Parents
It will be the joy of every parent to know that there is a one-stop online platform where fees and other education-related activities can be handled. Also, parents can get notifications on their mobile phones informing them of the well-being of their kids. Having this system in place would be a huge plus for your learning centre. This is because parents love to be updated on their kids’ progress.
4. Helps Track Business Growth
Running an education centre without proper business performance and data analytics can negatively impact the growth of your business. You need data to analyse how your business is faring so that you are able to make some tweaks to improve your efforts. This is where a good school management system can help you manage all of these aspects.
Work With AOneSchools To Boost Your Education Business
If you own an education centre in Southeast Asia and are looking for ways to grow your business, AOneSchools is what you need for a proper school management solution. AOneSchools has a team of professional software developers who strive to improve the efficiency of your school’s operation.
AOneSchools has been operating since 2015, and we understand what it takes to see an education centre grow. Whether you want a solution for lessons management, student management, or school management, rest assured of getting the best services from us.
Simply get in touch with us today, and our representatives will be happy to assist you with everything you need.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister had announced the prolonged Movement Controlled Order (MCO) for another 14 days until 14 April. At the same time, Singapore has announced additional measures to curb COVID-19 that is to ban all large gatherings and suspending all centre-based tuition and enrichment classes until 30 April. Given that having face-to-face classes is the livelihood for most of us, we definitely feel a great negative impact to our business.
Hence, a support session participated by 160+ learning centre operators across Malaysia, Singapore, Macau and Jakarta, was organised via Zoom and moderated by Dr Darren Gouk; founder of AOneSchools – learning centre software providers in Southeast Asia. The meeting focused on 5 key areas:
NO 1 – Online teaching and e-Learning
All centre operators agreed that there is a need to shift from offline to online teaching and learning. There are already many existing online platforms that provides content for students to learn from. As a result, parents may freeze or withdraw their children from your centre and substitute the classes with an online provider. Hence, in this situation, we should pivot fast and switch to online as soon as possible. Focus on those parents who are ready to engage in online learning and maximise our effort there.
From the discussion, several notable platforms that can facilitate e-learning were mentioned – Google Classroom, Zoom, Skype, AOneSchools Online Classroom. While content providers mentioned were iLearnAce, Udemy, SmartJen and 学而思. Please note that not all brands mentioned are free of charge to use while some might only incur a fee for a more premium package. AOneSchools is not in any way affiliated to the brands above besides our ownAOneSchools Online Classroom.
In general, the adoption rate (parents who agreed to online learning) is about 60% to 85% depending on the type of lessons that is provided. It is worth noting that not all parents will agree with the idea of online learning. Experience sharing from several centre operators reveal that common friction faced are parents are not as keen to allow their younger children to use a laptop or tablet to learn and they do not believe that e-learning will as effective as offline lessons.
To tackle these issues, you need to address the initial aim of parents sending their children for lessons in the first place – that is to learn and improve on a certain subject or skill. If their children’s learning curve is suddenly disrupted, they might not be able to catch up in the future. Highlight to them the importance of continuing their education even in such difficult time. Besides that, you may suggest parents to sit with their younger children and assist them in the first few online classes and see whether they are able to cope with it. A typical big classroom setting can also be split into smaller groups with shorter sessions.
Online learning can be used beyond the typical classroom
arrangement. Several music centre owners have conducted various classes through
Zoom. For example, a Piano lesson provider uploads pre-recorded videos to
Youtube for music instrument teaching. Students are required to watch these
videos before their online class for a more engaging class. Parents are loving
this initiative as they get to see first-hand what their children have been
learning all this time.
“The Education
Market is always there. Parents and students will still be spending in
education but in different ways. We have to be agile and quick to change
our model to cater their needs!”
NO 2 – Communication & Engagement with parents/students and teacher
Over-communication is always better than under-communication. As centre owner-operators, it is your responsibility to constantly engage with all stakeholder of your business i.e parents / students, teachers, franchisees, licensees etc. While you might be worried on the financial aspect of the business, parents are as worried for their children’s learning progress and teachers are worried about the future of their job and income.
When coming up with a plan for this period, whether is to have
replacement classes or shift to online classes, you must include your staff
members in this plan. This is because they will be the frontliners to execute
whatever that is planned out and they understand better on the possible
challenges that will occur. This also gives the opportunity for a transparent
discussion and a clear direction for everyone in the organization to follow.
For the parents’ side, always address the situation as it is. Do not be vague by telling them everything will be fine but rather mention specifically your interim solution and how it will be carried out. Learning centres must be well prepared to inform parents even before any further announcements from the Government i.e. the Prolonged MCO until 14th April. It certainly makes a huge difference if a centre operator informs their students and parents on their interim arrangement (e.g online class, pro-rate fees, replacement class) immediately after the government’s announcement versus another centre operator that only notify parents on their centre’s arrangement five days after the announcement. The same theory applies to communication with teachers and other stakeholders, ie. Franchisees, licensees as well.
3. What should I do to maximise lockdown period?
This is the best time to promote your centre on social media. This is because everyone is scrolling through their Facebook and Instagram at home. Continue to engage with your current clients (parents) and use this opportunity to promote your centre and attract past leads and contacts. For example, some centre owners organised Facebook Live sessions to showcase their unique selling points such as how they teach their students. This is a great tool to use as parents can easily share this to their friends and family members to watch together. Not only would this further engage your current students for more stickiness towards your business, but at the same time it will also attract new students to your learning centre.
In addition to this, constantly post on your Facebook page and Instagram, whether it is sharing a funny joke or posting questions. By doing so, this sub-consciously reminds parents why they signed up for your lessons in the first place and will continue to join your centre after the lockdown period. For fitness related classes or music school operators, most commonly seen strategies are utilising hashtags (#) on Instagram and Tik-Tok to build the engagement. A simple search will show that they are many videos on these platforms from “workout from home” to “learn to play a song in 14 days”.
On the backend of the business, take this time to clear all documents and review aspects of the business that you previously did not have the time for. For example, prepare a cash-flow analysis and business performance review for the first quarter of 2020. Compare it with your targeted achievement and locate areas of the business that can be improved. Get to know the following metrics:
% of student withdrawal on a
monthly basis
Student enrolment channels
% spending on salary
Life-time value of your
students
Which programme (lesson)
performs the best
Which teacher generates more
revenue
At the same time, you may
also consider to enhance your lessons plans by including more teaching tools or
utilizing various platforms for a higher productive class.
As a software provider to learning centres, we observed that centre operators are taking this opportunity during this MCO period to perform data entry to the system. Similarly, new users are going through our on-boarding process where they are guided to use their system. This includes all of their team members on systemising the centre operation using our solution. By the end of this period, they will be able to restart their business stronger with more organised and automated operations.
4. Government incentives and opportunities for SMEs (in Malaysia only)
On 24th March 2020, Bank Negara Malaysia announced an automatic six-months moratorium for all loans including business loans, property mortgages and hire purchase. This gives a better cash-flow arrangement for all business owners. At the same time, if you are renting the location of your centre, you may negotiate the rental fees with the landlord. Some owners shared that their landlords were understanding enough to give 50% off their monthly rent. Click here for more info.
Bank Negara Malaysia has also allocated RM2 billion to alleviate the short-term cash flow problems. Eligible SME owners may apply for financing with a capped rate of 3.75% p.a with a tenure of up to 5.5 years. Applications are available for major banks in Malaysia. Click here for more info.
Under the 2020 Budget, the
government; through Ministry of Finance (MOF) collaborated with Bank Simpanan
Nasional (BSN), SME Bank, and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) in
setting up a grant for eligible Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt
digitalisation in daily operations.
Launched in mid-February, this is a 50% matching grant of up to RM5,000 per company for the subscription of any digital solution such as a management system, accounting software and HR payroll solutions. This matching grant will be worth RM500 million over 5 years, limited to the first 100,000 application. Click here for more info.
AOneSchools has been selected as one of the Technology Solution Providers (TSP) under this initiative. Any learning centres such as tuition centres, enrichment classes providers, kindergartens, daycare centres, swim schools, music schools that meet the eligibility criteria will receive 50% subsidy (up to RM5,000 when adopting our management system.
5. PLAN B – What should I do if further lockdown for 3 months?
“Plan for the worst, do our best” was the tagline of the discussion. At this rate, no one can predict if the lockdown period will continue and if the COVID-19 situation will worsen. Hence, the only thing we can do is to plan for the worst and do our best throughout this entire period.
Firstly,
you need to face the reality and estimate how long your business can sustain
with zero revenue. By getting that aspect done, proceed to plan for your
cash-flow management. List down all fixed cost, variable cost and operational
cost. For example, loan repayment, rental fees, salaries, utility bills,
printing cost, office supplies, royalty payment to HQ. Locate which cost can be
lowered and what can be done to cut expenses.
Secondly,
in terms of running the business, many centre owners asked how they can manage
their business from home. At this crucial period, it is suggested that you
include automation in any of your work procedure. This includes automated fee collection (auto-billing, in-app
payment), cashless fee collection, replacement class arrangement, e-attendance
and e-progress reports. By doing so, you can always be on-the-go and still
manage your business while reducing your operational cost. By using
AOneSchools, centre operators can basically manage the centre operations from
home!
Finally, continue to offer e-Learning to your
students. While you might experience some resistance from parents, having some
students is clearly better than having no
students at all. In the long run if this continues, parents will not have the
luxury of choosing not to join online classes as this will be the only option
for education. The education industry will continue to survive as the market is
always there. It is just how agile we can be to change our business model and
adapt to current time.
“We can’t change the
situation, but we can change our mindset in dealing with the situation
positively.”
