Education institutions around the world are adopting digital transformation to overcome challenges and adapt to digital infrastructure. Technologies like ERP/SIS and others are helping with digital transformation and removing old processes that restrict growth and achievements.  

False Bay College from South Africa also moved ahead adopting Academia SIS as their advanced tech companion to achieve digital transformation. With the ongoing enhancements in technology, institutions need to be agile to keep up with the ever-changing demands and needs of the education sector. A modern, fit-for-purpose Student Information System should not only support the attainment of the College’s strategic goals but also be flexible (configurable) enough to accommodate changing needs of the businesses with time and support new or changing strategic objectives/direction. 

In 2021, False Bay Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College broke new ground. It was the first TVET College in South Africa to implement Academia Student Information System (SIS) and go live for applications and registrations. It has been an accomplishment as all project meetings, workshops, and training were delivered remotely during the pandemic and global lockdown. 

While this was no easy feat, it illustrates the pioneering journey that also Bay TVET College undertook to adopt a robust SIS and replace its existing systems. 

“We wanted a customizable solution as per the needs of our vocational & occupational programs. Academia ERP was the system of choice as it provided us with rich functionalities and customization as per the College SIS requirements. We are very satisfied with the implementation and post-implementation services provided by Academia that helped us achieve automation and digital transformation”.

Mark Cramer 

Acting Deputy Principal, False Bay College

Muizenberg, South Africa

Challenges Faced & their Solution with Academia

• Mismanaged Enquiry & Admission Management

The admission season is one of the busiest times of the year for all stakeholders in the institution. In COVID-19 it became a lot more difficult for institutions across the world to manage admissions. False Bay also witnessed difficulty in managing the enquiries & applications in moving ahead with the admission process. 

Solution:

Academia proved to be a true solution to solve this issue. It automated the complete enquiry and application process. It streamlined and processed more than a hundred thousand applications. This helped institutions efficiently manage the entire admission process during the COVID-19 period.

• Improper Communication

Effective communication is the key to success for modern educational institutions. It is crucial to create a clear chain of communication among all the stakeholders, departments, and locations. False Bay faced gaps in communication in various processes throughout the organization.

Solution:

With the advancement in technology, institutions need to create a crystal clear line of communication among stakeholders. Academia provided a robust solution for this – a feature-rich mobile application and an easy-to-use portal! 

Using Academia, it became so easy for False Bay to create a smooth communication channel with facilities like easy notifications on mobile apps, SMS, emails, and more to circulate any information among stakeholders. The students and faculty members also get it easier to connect from anywhere and anytime according to their needs.

• Manual Intervention among Multiple Locations

There are various branches of False Bay college in South Africa. It was difficult to manage all the departments altogether manually. There were a lot of files, documents, and multitudes of data and information that they had to exchange regularly. 

Solution:

To this, Academia offered a robust feature, i.e., Multi-centre Capability. All the data associated with all the departments, campuses, and locations remain centralized in a single system that can be accessed according to the authorities. 

It also provided a facility for students, as a TVET student, students can remain active in multiple campuses, batches, and courses at a time.

• Problem in managing data with legacy system

The False Bay college was using a legacy system that lacked various features like multi-center capability, effective data management, and more. The administrators and higher authorities were unable to organize and track huge amounts of data associated with students.

Solution:

Academia provided efficient management of all the data associated with each student. It also generated and transferred data of approx. one million students easily leading to bringing a level of transparency and accountability.

Major Benefits with Academia

• Efficient & streamlined enrollment and admission processes
• Chatbot integration benefiting students with a rich conversational experience
• Various efficient module-leading automation, for example, task management to generate minutes of meeting (MoM) and details related to any task.
• Separate portal for faculty members to reduce the workload of administrators and faculty members.
• A specific module to track inward and outward courier services.

Features that Attracted the Most

• Interoperability with integrations like Sage X3, LMS (Moodle), Chatbot, Koha, and a lot more.
• Multi-center capability provided a balance and connectivity between all the campuses around different locations.
• Boost in enquiry and admission during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Academia ERP/SIS – A Feature-rich ERP/SIS Platform for Advanced Institutions

Being the core of multiple institutions from across the world. Academia is proud to provide automation and digital transformation to institutions for more than a decade. 

Just like Academia found solutions to major problems for False Bay College South Africa, it is helping various other institutions, providing them with configurable solutions according to the number of students, the number of campus locations, and various other aspects. 

Your institute can also become the next one to overcome all the hurdles through a digital transformation! Reach out to us to discuss your major challenges and how Academia can help efficiently solve them!