Free and open source school management system

students and teacher Are you currently an owner of a school or college, or even thinking of starting one? If yes, did you know that a school management system helps to manage the various aspects of a school such as students, teachers, courses, grades, transcripts and many more. Photo by vancouverfilmschool.

Every school, no matter how big or small can utilize a school management system to gain some of the following benefits:

Easily track student demographics (for example, 70% are female students)
Store key student information such as address and contact numbers in case of emergencies.
Assist in scheduling courses for both teachers and students.
Track student attendances.
Notify students via sms in case a class is cancelled

Most school management systems these days are usually built from scratch based on a school’s actual requirements. This approach takes the most time and effort to achieve.

If your school is a new start up, and you really need a system to be in place before the first few students enroll, you can consider utilizing this free and open source student management system called OpenSIS – Open Source Student Information System.

OpenSIS is a free web based student information system that is comparable to other costly commercial alternatives in terms of features, looks, ease of use and administration.

Although OpenSIS is well known as a student information system, I have installed and tried it out on my development environment and found out that it allows you to manage more than just student information such as:

Teachers
Users
Grades
Report Cards
Health Records
Parent Portal
Transcripts
Courses and Activities

OpenSIS is a web based solution which can be installed on the following platform:

Web Server: Apache
Database: Either PostgreSQL or MySQL
Programming Language: PHP

I believe OpenSIS is not just useful for local schools and colleges but also for:

Music schools
Kindergardens
Dancing academies
Martial arts schools
Private institutions
Tuition classes

To easily evaluate if these OpenSIS features and capabilities suites your school, simply head over to OpenSIS website and click on the Try Now button to give it a test without having to install anything. Hope this tool recommendation helps academicians and school administrators out there!