Academia ERP by Serosoft

Originally posted on https://www.academiaerp.com/10-popular-chains-of-schools-in-india/

In recent years, there has been a positive development in the growth of private chain of schools in India against a background of nationwide persecution of privately promoted schools, overwhelmingly preferred by the middle class.

There has always been a sustained protest by the country’s powerful and influential middle class against private schools raising their tuition fees annually. In spite of private education in contemporary India being cheaper than any other country worldwide, there is a demand for first world private education at very low prices. At the same time, in several states, government schools providing free education are catching up with quality education and infrastructure.

In such a scenario, what has emerged as a welcome development is the emergence of chains of schools providing the assurance of quality and standardised education. This proves to be of national interest because these groups of schools have the advantages of distributed overheads, shared teacher training and other resources to deliver good quality education at substantially lower prices than standalone schools or even small groups of private schools in India. Hence, they are in a better position to meet the rising popular demand for affordable English-medium education.

Let us look at 10 popular chains of schools in India, which are changing the education set up in the country.

1. Ryan International Group of Institutions, Mumbai

Established: 1976 Number of schools: 137 Affiliation: CBSE/CISCE/IB/CAIE/state boards Aggregate enrolment: 270,000 Faculty: 16,000 Geographical spread: 40 cities in 16 states

The Ryan International Group of Institutions promoted by Dr. Augustine and Mrs. Grace Pinto is one of the largest and most respected school chains in India. The Ryan group of institutions uniquely contributes to a balanced growth of the Indian economy by establishing quality English-medium schools beyond the metropolitan cities, in tier-II, III and IV cities.

In 2018, RIGI was conferred the World’s 100 Greatest Brands 2018 award by URS Media & Asia One at the India UAE Business & Social Forum Conference held in Dubai.

2. Podar Education Network, Mumbai

Established: 1927 Number of schools: 124 + 350 preschools Affiliation: CBSE/CISCE/IB/state board/Cambridge International Aggregate enrolment: 150,000 Faculty: 6,800 Geographical spread: 9 states

Mahatma Gandhi was the first president of the Podar Group of Schools founded by Seth Anandilal Podar. Since then, the Group has been steadily growing to become an education service conglomerate and a household name in preprimary and higher school education.

Dr. Pavan Podar, chairman of Podar Education Network proudly dedicates the success of their institutions to their well-trained teachers acquainted with the latest digital technologies and also to their contemporary education, which prepares children to meet the challenges of changing times.

3. Billabong High International Schools, Mumbai

Established: 2000 Number of schools: 30 Aggregate enrolment: 20,000 Affiliation: CISCE/CBSE/Cambridge International Geographical spread: 21 cities

The first Billabong High International School (BHIS) was founded by Lina Ashar, an early childhood education leader, who also founded the highly acclaimed Kangaroo Kids premium chain of preschools. Billabong chain of Schools has gone on to become one of the country’s most respected school chains and was awarded the Best School Brand award of the Economic Times, in 2016.

BHIS seeks to design engaging curriculums making learning a joyful experience for children while going beyond academics to integrate sports and performing arts into the curriculum. They deliver integrated multi-disciplinary education to develop the students’ creativity, critical thinking and application skills.

4. VIBGYOR Group, Mumbai

Established: 2004 Number of schools: 33 Affiliation: CBSE/CISCE/Cambridge International Aggregate enrolment: 48,000 Faculty: 6,000 Geographical spread: 9 cities

Rustom P. Kerawalla, an engineering graduate, founded the Vibgyor Group of schools and has nurtured the Group into becoming one of fastest growing proprietorial chain of schoolsin India. Setting new benchmarks for quality education, the VIBGYOR schools enjoy an impeccable reputation.

They are distinguished by the unique integrated curriculum which provides a balanced mix of classroom learning, sports, performing arts and extra-curricular activities, to enable the over-all development of children.

5. Presidency Group, Bangalore

Established: 1976 Number of schools: 7 Affiliation: CBSE/CISCE Aggregate enrolment: 15,000 Faculty: 1,100 Geographical spread: 2 cities

The Bangalore-based Presidency Group of Institutions (PGI), was promoted by educationist Dr. Nissar Ahmed and is one of the top schools of the city. The distinguishing feature of Presidency schools is their intensively-researched curriculum incorporating thematic/integrated pedagogies designed to develop students’ critical thinking and knowledge application skills.

The curriculum is enhanced by values and life-skills education preparing learners to take on new age challenges.

6. Maharishi Vidya Mandir Schools, Bhopal

Established: 1991 Number of schools: 156 Affiliation: CBSE/state boards Aggregate enrolment: 102,500 Faculty: 6,500 Geographical spread: 126 cities

These schools were conceptualised and opened to honour the wisdom and teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918-2008), also the spiritual guru and mentor of The Beatles. The MVM schools provide academically rigorous mainstream CBSE and state board prescribed curriculum, along with the Maharishi Consciousness pedagogy which is a unique blend of Vedic education and the Maharishi Technology.

This includes practice of cognition enhancing transcendental meditation and Siddhi programmes, that enable children to attain their full creative potential.

7. Kendriya Vidyalayas, Delhi

Established: 1962 Number of schools: 1,204 Affiliation: CBSE Aggregate enrolment: 1.27 million Faculty: 45,477 Geographical spread: 29 states and seven Union territories

The Kendriya Vidyalayas are promoted and funded by the Central government through generous budgetary allocations for children of Central government employees in transferable jobs and have heavily subsidised fees. This pampered chain is managed by the Delhi-based Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, an autonomous body under the Union HRD ministry’s jurisdiction and are known for their outstanding examination results, year after year.

In the CBSE class X exam results of 2019, the KVs outperformed all CBSE-affiliated including private schools in India, with a national pass percentage of 99.47 percent.

8. Vidya Bharati Schools, Lucknow

Established: 1952 Number of schools: 13,067 Aggregate enrolment: 3.4 million Faculty: 150,190 Affiliation: CBSE/state boards/NIOS Geographical spread: 29 states

RSA leader Krishna Chandra Gandhi, with Bhaurav Devras and Nana Jai ​​Deshmukh, set up the country’s first Saraswati Shishu Mandir on July 1, 1952 at Gorakhpur. Slowly as more schools opened up in 1977 Vidya Bharati Sanstha was formed, giving it a national form.

Vidya Bharati Schools (VBS) is India’s largest K-12 chain and focusses on educating on Hindutva, patriotism and Indian values and culture, along with the standard curriculum. Hence, students have specially written texts about India’s culture and customs and all students compulsorily learn moral education, physical education (martial arts), music, Sanskrit and Vedic maths.

9. DAV Schools

Established: 1886 Number of schools: 900+ schools Aggregate enrolment: 2 million Faculty: 50,000 Geographical spread: All states and abroad

The D.A.V. Schools are based on the ideals of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the religious and social reformer and was founded in Lahore by Mahatma Hansraj.

While English is the primary language of instruction, students receive compulsory education in Hindi and Sanskrit or a regional language. Today, the DAV Schools are the single largest non-governmental educational society in the country. In 2013, The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) awarded the Best Chain of Schools in India award to DAV Schools.

10. Delhi Public School Society

Established: 1941 Number of schools: 205 in India, 11 abroad Geographical spread: All states and abroad

The DPS Society is a non-profit, non-proprietary, private, educational organization. Starting as Church High School in 1941, the Delhi Public School Society was started in 1949 by Pinkesh Barjatiya. Besides being one of the largest, it is also one of the most reputed and trusted education societies in the country.

Innovation is fundamental to DPS learning programmes and its faculty seeks to revolutionise through ideas and practices, matching the demands of new age educational trends and global associations. The primary focus is on meaningful and joyful learning.

This list is by no means comprehensive as there are equally (if not more) popular school chains that are making a significant difference in the Indian education system. Interestingly, the one factor that has been instrumental in the growth and further expansions is the introduction of technology.

The Education and its delivery both have been changing at a drastic pace. This is being observed that the time has arrived to reject the incremental changes to transform the education rather, it’s the need of radical transformation to fully equip the students to be future ready.

The change in professional education has been quick, enabled by many tools that we now use for collaboration. Technology has provided us with the ability to communicate, collaborate and create with any number of educators globally, at any time, and now is cost effective. One would think that educators would be celebrating like never before due to the advancement of technology assisting them in their profession to provide better services.

Now that we’ve popped the cork on 2016, we’ve also had some time to reflect on the previous year. After all, 2015 did see a plenty of new technologies and solutions bloom while others faded away from the limelight.

Technology today, offers tremendous capabilities to address the challenges faced by the learners with disabilities and also institutions who are focusing on various target audiences. It is imperative that the institutions should focus and apply these advancements to their benefit to provide better quality education and services. Therefore, significance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution has evolved not only in the developed countries however, also in the developing economies in the recent past. There is an ever growing demand of an effective ERP solution and hence, many IT firms are under constant research and development to get ahead of each other.

In the view of the same, Serosoft Solution Pvt. Ltd. has developed a comprehensive ERP solution by the name of “Academia ERP” and it has developed a remarkable learning management system called “Web Guru” which assist immensely in online learning.

Through eLearning, students can now study whenever they want. There are no fixed timetables so people from different time zones can also now do the same courses enrolled in the same academic institute. Moreover, students can also undertake tests whenever they want within the time provided to them.

Higher education serves a lot of purposes. One is to disseminate knowledge. Another is to offer a set of structured interactions for students to experience, so they can grow in a predefined direction or path. Also yet another purpose is to develop meaningful relationships with the faculties and their peer groups.

The allied Educator can be about the need for teachers in this digital age to fully utilize the potential of emerging technologies. In the professional development faculties, team members, governing authority work together in local and global networks connecting, creating, harvesting and nurturing the knowledge they apply in college and universities.

This story was originally published on https://www.academiaerp.com/student-registration-and-admissions-management/

Management, as they say, is the art of getting work done tactically through the efforts of the other people. Management is universal and all-pervasive in nature. However, it has an extremely critical role when it comes to the Education sector. The education sector has expanded leaps and bounds. With the booming population, this sector is gaining grounds both for the students and for academicians. When it comes to managing an educational institute there are several complexities and vagaries that the educational institution has to face.

This calls for a full proof student registration and student management. An efficient registration system would ease out the process thereby reducing the stress and strain on the parts of both the institute and the student community. The registration process involves a lot of clerical work and frequent change of choices by the students. This module handles the registration and admission process for both existing and new students. It is designed and structured in to ensure smooth functioning of a school, educational institution or University. This software allows you to supervise the admission and registration process of all the students along with storing their family details, previous schooling information, school transfer certificates, birth certificates, Fee payer details, Blood Group, Physical Details, Vaccination details, Positive incidence, identity photograph and many more. Also, you can keep a track of prospectus sale, refundable security deposit, and one-time registration fee, assign the class/ course, section roll number, Enrollment number to the student.

Doing things all over the portal is a good idea as mechanization herein cannot be avoided. There are millions who register themselves into several universities and make a final choice on the basis of the best possible options available for them. The data for registration involves the students in bulk, however, the number of entries per student is restricted. Mechanization, therefore, becomes necessary.

The Admission Management comes at a little later stage. The Admission process calls for detailed enquiry starting from personal details to academic entries to several documentation and filing work. Both registration and admission management involve the element of responsibility as the data to be handled requires great diligence and care. There are severe loopholes in the process which create a lot of confusion in the channel. With a combination of mechanization and a certain extent of diligence, we are heading on the way of minimizing the problems in the process.

The growth of educational resources and online courses being offered today are a clear indication of the shift to technology and how it’s changing the landscape of the education industry.

Every year there is an increasing number of students opting out of attending schools and colleges physically. With many study options available, a lot of which are online and comparatively cheaper, technology is playing a huge role in making education accessible and cheaper than ever before. Even long-distance or work-based learning, as well as apprenticeships, are becoming available online, which reduces the total cost of education by permitting interns to live at home and learn and earn.

Today, when the world has been ravaged by COVID19 in an unprecedented way, education is one field which has managed to deliver, without any hiccups. Educational institutions all over the world have quickly moved all their teaching online and are making sure that students are gathering every bit of knowledge and learning that they would have, on campus.

While online education may be the need of the hour right now, technology has always proved to be a gainful investment for educational institutions, one of which is saving on costs.

Let us explore 5 ways in which technology can help save cost for educational institutions.

1. Using the cloud instead of the copier

Educational institutions have seen the enormous potential of the cloud and more and more schools and colleges are moving over every year. A market research report had predicted a 26% annual growth in cloud computing in schools through 2021. Needless to say, with the ongoing pandemic the numbers would inflate too much more than that.

Cloud technology has plenty of instant benefits to academic institutions like –

It does away with the need to buy expensive printed textbooks, which become outdated quickly. Using digital content allows easy regular updating as and when necessary, which also saves cost substantially for the school.

It minimizes the requirements for expensive hardware like servers, which call for ongoing server room cooling, maintenance and a huge amount of space.

It reduces the use of toner and copy paper, along with saving the time spent on making copies every week, while also reducing carbon footprints.

If there is ever a loss or a need to track down a paper trail, a cloud system will give easy access and swiftly recover data.

2. Taking advantage of the VoIP over the traditional PBX

Switching over to the VoIP phone system has helped schools and institutions to cut down costs by lowering phone bills and having access to new automation features to further boost productivity.

VoIP providers often offer free internal calls making it possible for teachers, administrators, and anyone with a phone connected to the phone system to call each other without any charges. Larger schools and institutions can save a substantial amount by using a VoIP phone system since all the frequent calls made within a school system are considered in-network and will be free of charge.

A VoIP system is cheaper to maintain than a PBX system. It can be installed quickly with adding and removing of phones done simply. A hosted VoIP system comes with free 24/7 support staff.

3. Opting for the digital platform over manual  

In this age of technology, it is a challenge for educators to constantly keep the learning environment engaging and relevant. It is important for them to keep the communications and information flow of the school community completely smooth and secure.

While it may seem migrating to a digital platform would require huge budgets, truth is, it is the crucial factor that can actually cut costs, boost productivity and save time which is otherwise wasted on administrative tasks. With digitization, teachers and administrators do not have to spend time with old machines, including outdated computers, printers and slow networks; and could use their time for more productive work. Teachers have the advantage of using technology to produce more creative learning opportunities for students. On the other hand, students get accustomed to technology at an early age and learn valuable skills which will sustain them for life.

4. Using special-purpose applications for better efficiency

Educational institutions have started to see the utility of application that can help them manage a lot of departments better. Since educators know they have the responsibility of building the careers and lives of a whole new generation, they understand there is no scope for mistakes. Switching over to digital helps to make sure there are no errors in statistics and work flows smoothly as programmed. They are moving to the use of specifically created applications to better manage food services, school buses, utilities like electricity and cooling/heating, textbooks, etc.

Besides the smooth functioning and management of various departments with the use of various applications, educational institutions are also saving money by eliminating the need of human intervention and physical work.

5. Availing digital documents over physical material

One important aspect of knowledge is, it needs constant updating. Going digital helps to quickly and efficiently update new material online with adaptable changes. Content changes and delivery, digitally, lowers the cost of printing the new material and also gets rid of the reliance on physical printed content and copy.

While education institutions wake up to the importance of technology and seek to empower themselves with the latest, it is the SIS (Student Information System) that has proved to be the ground breaker with the advantage to connect, teach and manage better. One of the most important roles technology plays is to handle evolving requirements and efficiently manage multiple modes of communication.

Academia SIS has been specifically developed to suit the current and future needs of growing higher education institutions. It is a unique multifeatured solution for Group Institutions, Business Schools, Universities, Colleges etc. and automates the complete student life cycle.

Undeniably, the best technology solution to successfully lower costs while providing an edge by enhancing connectivity among students, teachers and parents.

An education management information system is becoming a necessity for educational institutions. Whether it is a college, university, school, or training institution, everyone needs a system that can bring digital transformation in their institution and simplifies their day to day tasks.

Academia by Serosoft is an award-winning institution that is benefiting 220+ institutions around the globe, powering educators to bring a better, faster, efficient, and productive education management system.

After intensive research and talking to our clients, we got to know that among 20+ modules, few of them are the most favorite of educators, and the staff is getting enormous benefits from these modules.

Here are four of the Academia ERP modules that they like the most:

Online Admission Management

Today’s students are digital natives, and they prefer everything online rather than standing in lines. From clothing to food everything is deliverable to them via the internet. Even learning and education experiences are also becoming more and more global and available to students on their demand. Then why taking admissions to their favorite college/university should remain outdated?

Many famous educational institutions have already gone digital in the admission process. From admission campaign to inquiry management, student applications, entrance exams, everything is now available online. Academia Student Management System is one such solution that is enabling institutions to bring automated admissions in their academic management. It helps educators and staff to manage all the admission processes online in a seamless manner. It also assists in measuring targets, comparing them from previous years, and analyzing the data so that they can understand what works best for them.

Now let’s see how managing inquiries from students became a lot easier with Academia.

Inquiry management with Academia AI Chatbot

What if you could save the staff time from handling 24X7 hr questions from prospective students? What if it is not limited to only the working hours of your institute? Wouldn’t that be more productive?

All this and much more is possible with Academia AI Chatbot. This School Management System integrates this chatbot on your institute’s website where students can ask whatever they want related to admissions, courses, etc. This chatbot will answer all the queries of students and save it in an excel sheet where you can keep track of it to take the follow up in the future.

Report management with Smart Analytics

Educational institutions usually have endless paperwork, reporting, documentation, etc. There is no way to stop it, but there is a way to manage it. With the digitization of academic processes, it becomes way more comfortable and time-saving to generate reports, keep track of every document whenever and wherever needed.

Academia Campus ERP enables educators to organize that reporting system seamlessly. With the integration of the smart analytics system, it assists staff to generate reports within a few clicks. As it is a centralized student database system, it becomes super convenient to use some filters, gather data from other departments, and generate reports within seconds—no need to do data entry for hours. The reporting system of Academia is available in different charts & bar graphs, which helps education leaders analysis and thereby faster decision making.

Interoperability with multiple software solutions

According to the fundamental definition of interoperability

Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system, whose interfaces are completely understood, to work with other products or systems, at present or in the future, in either implementation or access, without any restrictions.

Or simply;

Interoperability is an understanding of the software to work with other software programs now or in the future. It is useful in when

It is not possible to configure everything in one software.

A customer wants to use previous software which they are familiar with.

A customer wants some functionality that is not available in the current version.

Then, with the interoperability feature, vendors can integrate another software and fulfill customer’s needs.

Academia offers multiple integrations with software like Moodle (Learning Management System), KOHA (Library Management System), Alfresco (Document Management System), Tally (Accounting Software), etc. Moreover, it is entirely compatible with other software as per the requirements of customers.