Education system of Nepal has been abysmal. Be it private or governmental educational institutes, the quality of education in Nepal has had adverse effects on not only the students but also their guardians and the educational institutes themselves. In addition to that, due to the ever-growing number of students and concurrently growing number of schools and colleges, to manage the quality of education has been a challenge for all.

Despite the bottlenecks, there are still some private schools and colleges that put considerable effort for improving and sustaining quality education, and they do so by primarily focusing on the school management system.

When it comes to school management system, communication is the key. A proper school management system builds the invisible bridge between the students, guardians, teachers and the institute itself, forming a sustainable ecosystem of information and communication. Even though few schools and colleges have adopted the approach, Roshan Limbu believed that there were still a lot of loopholes that had a significant possibility of being filled in the management system scenario. Thus, Roshan, 28, conceptualized the idea of Sajilo School/College, a comprehensive web-based School Management Software that overcomes the barrier of communication between all the parties involved i.e. students, guardians, teachers and the management, conforms the manual and administrative works of the institution and enhances the educational institute in an eco-friendly and technology-rich method.

The light bulb moment

Roshan Limbu and his friend, Prabal Pradhan –  code fanatics and technology lovers – were always very aware of the increasing problems and challenges of students, guardians and educational institutions in the matter of conventional communication, convenient payment and proper management system. With a significant number of parents/guardians living abroad, it's hard for them to keep up with their children's academic progress, which has put them in a complex situation.

Roshan says, "What is the meaning of working so hard and spending so much money on school fees if parents cannot even have the visible statistics of their children's academic status just because they live somewhere far away or do not have sufficient time to run to the school? We wanted to find a way to connect the parents with their children and the institutes, creating a sustainable eco-system of all the stakeholders that would not only fix the communication barrier but also benefit every involved party in every way possible. Through this app, we enable parents to view their children's academic progresses and also connect to the teachers and the management for proper parent-student-teacher involvement.”

Challenges along the way

For Roshan and Prabal, dealing with finance was crucial when they started. They had to halt everything that brought income and switch to the development of the system, which meant the blockade of the money pipe. With the modicum savings and bootstrapping, they generated the seed fund and gathered a team of close friends who were interested and involved in the same field to start building their vision of sustainable and innovative student information and school management system.

"Before the idea hit my mind, I ran a computer institute in Bagbazaar. As we discussed and finalized on preparing our management system model, we had to stop the institute for nine months, which meant the loss a huge sum of money for us. We shared the idea with our close friends and family members. The interested people invested on our idea, and thus we operated on a tight budget." says Roshan.

With financial racks, on one hand, the insecurity of their audiences accepting the idea hit them close to the ground. "We expected to capture a lot of schools with our idea of Sajilo School Management system, but we were put down a lot of times by a lot of schools and colleges,” says Roshan. “Most of them answered us with the same answer that they already had a school management system, and we were not able to provide anything new to them initially."

While all that was happening, the massive earthquake of 2072 shook them, everything was put to stop for a good few months, which ultimately impeded their pace of execution. However, they utilized the time by brainstorming on how they could improve their system and give provide a lot more than what regular school management systems could. "We were determined about our idea, and we knew we weren't going to stop it whatever may happen. We worked on developing a better system day and night to create THE ultimate school management system with all the possible features at a very affordable price range that no educational institutes would knock back," Roshan added.

The building blocks

The team of Sajilo School/Colleges started off with two close friends who wanted to make a sustainable change in the education system through technology and now consists of nine full time and part time core members handling various verticals of Sajilo School Management. The executive members of the startup have decided on growing the team sooner this year and make the team bigger and stronger.

The core idea of Sajilo School/ College

The core concept of the system lies in its name 'Sajilo', which means 'easy.' Sajilo School/College aims to make the communicative, educational and administrative hassle easier for everyone. The web-based app contains outstanding features from account handling, providing academic materials such as school routines, assignments, progress reports, and so on to centrally administered messaging feature for easy guardian-teacher communication, monitoring tuition fees, tracking school-bus and providing online academic forms/ event notifications.

Sajilo School/College is far ahead of any regular school management system any school in Nepal has yet adopted. Their primary goal is to provide a proper and sustainable school management system for the all-round benefit of students, parents, teachers and the institute. "With Sajilo School, we target even the smallest educational institutes who do not adopt a proper management system just because of the significant price range. Every school and college require an appropriate management system and its inevitable for providing quality education to the students."

In only four months of launching their software, the team of Sajilo School has been able to capture the attention of 50 schools and colleges out of which 30 are already running on the system. This instant success lies in the introduction of such an innovative and convenient concept to Nepal's education system that would ameliorate the pattern of teaching and learning process.

Inviting an eco-friendly approach

“Educational institutes use a very large amount of paper each day, and it is an extravagant expense for schools and colleges,” Roshan talks about an issue they are trying to address. Not only that, it also has adverse environmental effect; hundreds and thousands of trees are cut down to manufacture paper and the natural degradation caused by that are well-informed to all of us. Along with the deforestation hazards, the chemical pollution caused by the paper production companies is significant.

Sajilo School contributes to the issue, despite how small the contribution might seem, by reducing a lot of paperwork for schools and colleges. With all the information, notices, report cards, bills, accountings, and other paper based work now on an app, the use of paper reduces down to almost (or more than) a half, which is quite a lot. When it comes to schools and colleges, more use of technology means less use of paper; and less use of paper means cutting down a huge part of expense while being environment-friendly too. "One of the primary goals of ours is to create eco-friendly and technology-rich education institute. We intend to do so by performing most possible activities of school digitally via our software," says Roshan.

Sajilo School/College as the future of school management system

With Sajilo School, Roshan and the team have envisioned to bring a drastic change in the definition of school management system in Nepal by creating the baseline for any educational institute to function qualitatively and sustainably. From administrative to academic functions, Sajilo School aims to be the 360-degree solution for any educational institute regarding the management system.

The main aim of Roshan and his team with Sajilo School is not to just generate the green paper. They are putting the all-around featured management system in the most affordable price range so every school and college can afford them, and every student gets the equal opportunity of quality education.