How to choose school management software for your school

1. Start with your hardest week

Every school has a week that hurts. For most it's results week: teachers chasing scores, the computer room busy until night, report cards reprinted because one score was wrong. For others it's resumption, when parents queue to pay fees and the bursar can't say who owes what.

Write down the three jobs that take your staff the most time. Judge every system on those first. A long feature list doesn't help if the report card still takes a week.

2. Test it on your own school

A demo shows a school the vendor set up. Ask for a trial account and set up your own: your classes, your subjects, your grading. Then try these:

• Enter one class's CA and exam scores and print the report card. Does it look like yours? Are positions and averages right?
• Set up next term's fees for two classes, with a levy and a sibling discount, and see what one parent owes
• Mark attendance for a class on a phone
• Sign in as a parent on a cheap Android phone with mobile data

3. Check it fits Nigerian schools

• Terms or semesters, and sessions such as 2026/2027
• Class names and arms: Nursery 1, Primary 5, JSS 1A, SSS 3 Science
• WAEC grading (A1 to F9), A*–U, or GPA with classes of degree
• Naira fees with levies, new-student charges, part payments and arrears
• Staff logins without email
• SMS for parents who don't use data much

If a system needs workarounds for any of these, your staff will be doing the workarounds every term.

4. Ask who can see what

A school holds sensitive data: children's records, medical notes, counselling, salaries and bank details. The system should let you decide who sees each of these, and keep a log of who changed what.

Ask the vendor: can a subject teacher see only their own classes and subjects? Can you hide salaries from everyone except the bursar and the owner? Can you suspend a staff member's access in one click when they leave?

5. Ask about your data

• Where is it kept, and how often is it backed up?
• Is the connection encrypted (https)?
• Can you export your records if you leave?
• Does the vendor follow the Nigeria Data Protection Act?
• Is each school's data kept separate from other schools'?

6. Compare the real cost

Work out what you'd pay for a full session for your number of students. Then ask what's extra:

7. Warning signs

• You can't try it on your own school before paying
• Report cards need the vendor to change them
• It only works on one computer in the office
• Parents need email addresses to sign in
• Nobody can tell you who to call on result day
• You pay for a full year upfront with no way to stop

Questions