Let teachers do the teaching – effectively and efficiently
Although teaching is one of the most revered professions, many people from the non-teaching background actually do not understand what is required from a school teacher. Surprisingly, it is often believed (wrongly) that providing lectures and marking exam papers are the main activities involved in this profession. This naive interpretation can lead to an unfair assessment of the workload that teachers often have to carry because of school administrative activities, which exclude the preparation time they spend for lectures.
Over the years, schools have evolved into institutions, with its complicated operations involving many stakeholders, including teachers. It is true that the primary duty of teachers is still educating students. However, like employees of an organization, teachers also need to shoulder some professional responsibilities, which are beyond their primary job. Unfortunately, sometimes, these operational responsibilities can take a toll on their primary duty of teaching, owing to the sheer volume of the work.
A solution to the schools undergoing operational complexity could be ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ (ERP) products, which have already been adopted by various industries to achieve operational efficiencies. ERP solutions have not only helped businesses streamline their operations, but have also led to the emergence of a separate industry dealing in ERP products and services space.
These days, schools are also adopting ERP systems to achieve and maintain operational efficiency. Now the question is how ERP can contribute to the very human aspect of teaching? To start with, ERP systems can reduce/expedite various non-teaching tasks undertaken by teachers (and even increase the overall quality) by automating them. This will allow teachers to spend more time class-room teaching, thereby enhancing their efficiencies in executing various teaching responsibilities, such as designing curriculum design.
Since School ERP systems are a new field, their adoption has been facing some initial (expected) hurdles. Cost-related concerns are expected to be mitigated once the relative benefits of ERP systems are made apparent to the decision makers. Additionally, with the advent of cloud computing, the associated CAPEX with ERP systems has reduced considerably. Of course, institutional support is paramount for this adoption to happen at the national scale. However, from the perspective of the teaching staff—the end-users of this system—there needs to be a special focus from ERP designers so that the overall user experience mitigates any resistance to adoption (which is natural if the system is imposed without considering the end-user perspective). Many teaching staff need the requisite support and training to absorb the transformation in teaching process- from traditional ‘chalk and board’ teaching to the one leveraging technology.
A teacher is not just an instructor but also an inspiration to the students. This requires them to collaborate with parents and colleagues to map each student’s roadmap for knowledge discovery. And technology solutions, like School Administration ERP, can allow them to spend their valuable time effectively fulfilling such purposes.
