What is a modern Management Information System (MIS)?

Schools are under an enormous amount of pressure and according to new IRIS research, 90% state that there are expectations for them to do more with less.

A solution often advised is to invest in a School Management System or Management Information System (school MIS) to address multiple back-office pain points.

However, a traditional MIS poses its own challenges, often resulting in more admin headaches.

Firstly, what is an MIS?

You may have referred to this as your school management system, school management software or school management information system.

In essence, a school management Information System is your school’s digital caretaker.

This software handles everything in the background: capturing, relaying and analysing the mountains of useful information that schools produce.

Education professionals in schools, academies and Trusts (also known as Muti-Academy Trusts or MATs) use the system to create reports and gather insights, enabling them to make data-driven decisions.

Why is a traditional MIS no longer suitable?

A traditional MIS is often clunky and dated, lacking the features needed for today’s teaching environment.

The systems are desktop-bound and lack a real-time view, forcing every department to work in inefficient and time-consuming siloes.

In a recent MIS whitepaper where we surveyed 265 education professionals, we found that 48% of schools believe their traditional MIS has obvious limitations, and 16% felt their current system hindered them.

While the potential benefits of an MIS are phenomenal, the restrictions of outdated software instead make teachers and school leaders’ lives harder, adding another layer of process – costing them even more time.

For more information on the challenges associated with a traditional MIS, click here.

What is a modern school MIS?

A modern school MIS builds upon existing foundations, providing everything you’d expect from a traditional solution but with streamlined processes, added features and cloud-functionality.

If schools want to use data to its full potential, colleagues need the flexibility to upload and manage data where and when they do administrative work.

Software such as IRIS Ed:gen offers schools and MATs far more freedom and flexibility, providing access to the MIS from any location, at any time via the cloud.

Additionally, a future-fit MIS includes extra tools and features that allow for improved communication with parents.

In particular, with IRIS Ed:gen, there’s real-time sharing, voice-to-text features, and automated communication tools between teachers, departments, and year groups.

Looking for more information?

If you’re looking for further resources, check out our MIS whitepaper in which we surveyed 265 education professionals to understand their daily software challenges.