Since the December 2019-announced partnership agreement between the Ministry of Education and MySchool Jamaica , which allows for all Government-run high and primary schools to receive a free licence for the MySchool Jamaica School Management Software (SMS) , there has been a rush of schools registering.

With March 31 being the deadline set for schools to sign up to receive the cloud-based school management software in time for the September 2020 academic year, more than 400 of the nearly 1,000 Government schools have already registered.

“We are a privately-owned company with our software operating in Jamaica since 2004. The ministry has partnered with us, having recognised the superior sophistication of our software as well as the fact that we are the most widely used school management software in Jamaica, currently operating in 125 schools,” said director and COO of MySchool Jamaica Pia Bramwell.

“Since our partnership with the Ministry of Education that now provides our software free to all schools islandwide, we have been inundated with daily calls from principals, school board members and even parents, requesting information and/or for us to register their respective schools before the deadline,” added Bramwell.

She argued that for educational institutions which were using any different school management software, the switch to MySchool Jamaica is easy and will lead to saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

“For those who previously could not afford a school management software, MySchool Jamaica is the perfect way to leapfrog the technological administrative barrier and provide principals, teachers and parents with the latest in educational technology management and distribution of information,” said Bramwell.

The MySchool SMS allows principals and teachers to use their mobile phones, tablets and/or computers to input specific school data.

This includes attendance and disciplinary records, payment records, medical records, staff records, homework, test and exam grades, to name a few.

Using these inputs, the SMS can, on demand, retrieve powerful, incisive, comparative and analytical reports for principals and staff, facilitating more data-driven decisions.

The software does not require full-time Wi-Fi as the information can be stored offline and then sync’d to the cloud whenever within Wi-Fi range.

According to Bramwell, MySchool Jamaica eliminates up to 50 per cent of the administrative work a school and its staff may have.

“Reports that normally took days to collate can now be generated in seconds. A principal can now, for example, quickly generate a list of all the children in the school with a below 50 per cent average in math, or generate a report showing all students that are absent on a particular day.

“It can also generate a list of students who owe fees, a graphical comparative of boys vs girls in ninth grade English and so on. The report types that can be generated are in the thousands and, of course, the system also automatically generates the coveted end of term report card which the parent can also see on their phones,” said Bramwell.

For chairman of MySchool Jamaica, Dr David McBean, the SMS will help revolutionise education in Jamaica.

“While the SMS can reduce administrative work in schools by up to 50 per cent, the real game-changer is the SMS’s Parent Access View via the platform’s web and mobile app. When fully deployed, MySchool will engage a potential one million plus parents and guardians daily, including those living abroad, providing them with the most immediate and comprehensive academic overview of their children,” said McBean.