Is your school struggling with data management issues? You’re not alone.

In our latest Voice of Australian Educators 2022 Research Report, 70% of respondents identified that maintaining accurate student records during the whole student lifecycle is a challenge.

Many schools are holding student and school records across multiple systems and spreadhsheets. Data is hard to see and information is siloed meaning it’s challenging and time-consuming to find the data you need, when you need it – and that’s a compliance nightmare

What happens when your school starts to grow?

Our research shows that as a school grows, the number of systems grows too. Schools are chasing extra features to meet growing needs, but because their legacy systems don’t have the right capabilities, they are compelled to add yet another system to the already complex environment.

There is a simpler way.

Many businesses of every kind are choosing to migrate to the cloud to manage their data for the vast benefits in flexibility, security and scalability – and schools are not exempt.

So how can cloud-native solutions help future-proof your school?

Lower cost of maintenance and infrastructure

Cloud-native software is hosted for you, so you can reduce the total cost of ownership. By embracing cloud-native solutions, you give your staff the tools to access information whenever and wherever they need them.

Cloud solutions grow with you

One of the most attractive benefits of cloud solutions is that they are built to scale with you. As your school grows, the cloud solution allows you to easily add new features and functionalities to handle a greater volume of users and data. You’ll be able to add new tools, integrate other data sources such as accounting software to increase efficiencies, and take advantage of new technologies as you need them – without having to start from scratch.

Seamless, on-demand access

By embracing cloud-native solutions, you give your staff the tools to access information and tools whenever and wherever they need them. For example, our new Zunia solution puts essential information at your staff’s fingertips across school management, finance and student learning. Educators can access all the live data and insights relating to a student in one place, from any device, so they can make informed decisions or share student information with parents when they matter most.

Focus on security

Cloud providers are driven to focus on security as their business and reputation depend on providing a robust and secure service. Cloud technologies often provide different security levels, depending on your data and requirements. For example, Zunia has been built in compliance with the world’s most stringent data security standards, including GDPR and ISO 27001, on a cloud platform offering Government-certified levels of security.

Choose cloud-native, not just cloud-hosted

Some vendors offer their on-premise software on cloud platforms. In other words, it is a solution that has been lifted, often unchanged, out of the data centre and into the cloud. But these solutions were not designed to run on a cloud platform and still come with many of the limitations of on-premise solutions.

By contrast, cloud-native software, like Zunia, is designed, developed, and deployed to take full advantage of cloud benefits, such as scalability and resiliency.

One of the key features is the microservice architecture. The idea behind a microservice architecture is that applications are simpler to build, modify, update and maintain when broken down into smaller pieces that work seamlessly together.

For example, our cloud-native solution Zunia features smaller components such as attendance, wellbeing, and finance, which together form a whole solution for your school and act as a single source of truth. Each component runs autonomously, which means as the number of users increases the components can scale independently.

Over to you

Change is hard but what is the cost to your school if you don’t adapt? If your current information system is already a drag on the school today, it will cause even more problems tomorrow. Take an honest look at whether the information solution you’re using today is helping your school move ahead or putting you further behind.