Since their inception, schools are thought to be easily manageable and less complicated businesses. With a streamline of fees and dues from the students, investments from the trustees and little to almost no hassle of administration, schools have been running their operations smoothly (apparently) since the last many decades.
However, this is far from true; in reality school management is getting equally complicated owing to the mounting population and changing demands of the education system.
Gone are the days when schools offered simple, pre planned curriculum, with no possibility of customization. Today, with changing global trends of economy and unemployment patterns, the educational paradigm has also made drastic shifts.
With a plethora of new fields to discover and study, schools are now burdened with the responsibility of providing top notch education to students with different interests, income classes and genders..
Problems Faced by Schools Globally
Following are some of the problems faced by schools across the globe, especially third world countries:
1. Insufficient Budget Allocation
As per statistics, every year the allocation of monetary resources by different governments to the educational sector remains low. The reason is that other budget heads such as health, infrastructure, nutrition and housing are given much more importance than education in many countries around the world.
This is not just disappointing, but also alarming as the population is increasing exponentially, but the number of schools and educational centers is increasing only arithmetically in majority countries.
Only 6-8%of the total federal budget is allocated to schools worldwide. This is why most state schools remain devoid of basic facilities such as electricity, stationary supplies, sufficient seating arrangements and even competent teachers.
2. Inadequate/Unqualified Teachers and Instructors
As the population is on the surge, so is the need for qualified teachers. Sadly, in majority state schools, this is not the case. Teachers are mostly paid insufficiently and unfavorable circumstances in underprivileged areas. For this reason, mostly unqualified teachers have to be employed to cope with the need of instructors in state schools.
3. Asset Misuse/Theft and Losses
As per stats of 2024, nearly 3.2% of all assets of state schools are annually lost, mainly due to mistreatment, theft or poor storage conditions.
Assets such as library books, journals, classroom furniture, computers and even buildings are not safe from public mistreatment. It is reported that students and teachers are irresponsible when taking care of school belongings leading to global wastage of state school assets.
4. Little Importance in Rural Areas
Even today when globalization and technology are taking their toll, strata in rural areas and worldwide slums do not consider education primary necessities for their families.
They report that fulfilling basic necessities are their foremost priorities, and education does not stand a chance for income classes below the poverty line. This is why school supplies and assets are wasted in rural areas and ultimately the state does not invest much in education for villages.
Ways Digitization Can Help
Though it is a lengthy process, integrating IT and digitalization in educational systems can add great value to schools worldwide. Some ways in which it can be fruitful for educational centers are:
- Online Education
Perhaps the greatest revolution digitalization can offer is shifting bookish knowledge onto the screens worldwide. Today when mobile phones are prevalent even in rural areas and villages of almost all third world countries, online lectures and registering in classes can enable students to participate in active classrooms, where actual school buildings are not available or ready for accommodating them.
Similarly, older students can access abundant books, journals, research papers and notes through digital channels. Schools would be free of utility and energy costs, as well as repair and rental costs of buildings, if online education is made mandatory in rural areas of developing countries.
2. Check and Balance of Assets
As mentioned earlier, fixed assets at schools are at greater risks of misuse, theft and redundancy. This is because as per stats, more than 52% of all schools globally do not have proper check and balance of assets they possess.
This is why schools need to outsource services to safeguard their assets, or use software such as fixed asset management software, which keeps a check of all fixed assets being used by school management, teachers and pupils alike. It keeps an eye on all asset related activities and ensures minimum damage to school properties. The purchase, depreciation, usage and disposal of fixed assets from computers to school buses, classroom furniture to books and journals, all can be easily tracked down using such software as a service.
3. Improved Communication
Through digitization of operations within schools, instead of asking parents and teachers for one to one opinions, many schools have now incorporated online feedback systems through which both can interact within webinars and video conferencing.
This saves time and traveling costs of working parents who might find it tedious to check their child’s progress regularly due to time constraints. Such feedback also engages students and they can easily report cases of bullying, favoritism and unpleasant incidents occurring within school premises, securing their confidentiality and ensuring they feel safe within their schools.
4. Admissions and Time Table
Through AI integration and automatic generation of merit lists, admission tests can be easily conducted online, and students securing high marks can be chosen for admission into schools all with digital procedure.
Similarly, time tables coherent with schedules of teachers and students can be effectively generated through digital tools and software by data analysis of free slots. These are generated through digital interactive schedulers used by many schools today.
5. Global Reach
In this era of globalization and advancement, schools can only succeed if they impart international knowledge to their students. Owing to a diverse curriculum, exposure to different literatures and journals is the need of the hour.
With advanced online libraries, schools can easily provide digital platforms to students so that they can access both national and universal educational material.
Conclusion
To end, it can be easily seen that schools should focus on incorporating digitalization in their businesses as soon as possible. It might seem costly and resistance by stakeholders might be initially a problem, but the long term results are surely promising.
Schools which have already done so have seen outstanding results, in both cost saving and academic performances of their students. In today’s world, inflation is a worldwide problem and schools are one of the many industries being affected.
Therefore, to promote economical and standardized education within masses, digital operations within schools are now necessary.
