Abstract:

The adoption of School Management Information Systems (SMIS) by schools has been documented as a means of improving processes of teaching and learning. However, adoption of any new information technology has always been met with mixed reactions by the users. Using a school in South Africa which recently adopted SMIS, this study sought to explore the impact of SMIS adoption on educators. In particular, the study aimed to find out the user-friendliness of the system and to ascertain whether the use of the system had improved effectiveness and ease of work of the teachers. A quantitative research methodology was followed in this study. 23 self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data from the teachers. The findings indicate that the user-friendliness of the SMIS was found to be average, the introduction of the SMIS had improved the effectiveness and made the work easier for the educators. It is recommended that schools that intend to adopt SMIS should engage in training before and during the initial phases of adoption. Further, mentor/mentee training programme within these schools should be introduced so that staff who are more knowledgeable are able to help the lesser knowledgeable staff. School Management should, where possible, choose SMIS software that is user friendly.

Keywords:

Information Technology, Teacher and learning, User-Friendliness.