Introduction
Ever since universities started operating in history, hostels have been a part of them and their seamless operation ensured that the students or others living in the hostel are taken care of. Simply put, a hostel is a place where people stayed together in an inexpensive setting, where usually students who study together live. It is managed by a warden, whose responsibilities mainly center around the well-being and discipline of the people living at the hostel. So it can be said that the warden was the equivalent of the manager of a hotel. However, maintaining records on paper is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. With everything from classes to fee management becoming digitized, it is only natural that this, too, became digital.
What is a Hostel Management System?
A hostel management system is a software solution that incorporates the use of technology to take care of the management aspect of a hostel. A hostel management system is designed to manage all activities of a hostel like fee collection, hostel admissions, room availability, mess allotment, hostel store management, etc. It is also used to manage monthly mess bill calculation, hostel staff payroll, student certificates, etc.
If designed & developed with the inputs of all the hostel management concerns of the staff, a hostel management system is a one-stop solution for managing all the hostel-related stuff at all educational institutions. From the registration of students and the allocation of rooms to managing student count records and the attendance of students, it automates and streamlines all the daily activities of the hostel.
How a Good Hostel Management System Can Benefit An Institution
A good hostel management system should have all the necessary tools to automate all the main functions of a hostel and make things easier for the staff. Here is how a good hostel management system can help an institution significantly.
Track Hostels Separately
Every educational institution, if they offer residential services, will have a boys/men's hostel and a girls/women's hostel. Each one of these hostels will have its own set of problems to solve, things to manage, and things to sort out. Hence, there is a need for separation of these 2 hostel systems so that there is no confusion or mistake regarding anything.
Detailed Tracking of Occupancy
A great hostel management system must have all the details of the hostel. It should have a detailed account of how many hostels there are for a particular institution, how many of them are for boys and how many for girls, how many floors there are in each hostel, how many rooms there are on each floor, and how many beds there are in each room, hence having the complete picture of the occupancy of the hostel. This means that the school management will know how many rooms are available on each floor, how many are occupied, as well as by whom.
Hostel Attendance
Tracking hostel attendance is extremely easy with a hostel management system. All the school will have to do is set up a biometric authentication system outside the hostel, and integrate it into the hostel management software. It will give the management a clear picture of the time of exit and entry timings of each student in the hostel, and how much time they spend at the hostel versus how much time they spend at school. If the hostel management software is linked to the attendance management system at the school, it can even record the time the student takes from the hostel to the school and back.
Gate Pass System
Most hostels have a gate pass system when it comes to allowing students to go out at times when they are supposed to be at the hostel. Making the whole process digital means that the gate pass can be made digital as well, in the form of a QR code or barcode that the system might generate and the students will be able to scan. This makes it easier for the students to go and come back without fear of losing the gate pass and on the management because they can do all of this without human intervention.
Wallet System for Hostel
If the hostel management system has a wallet system, it would really help the school as well as the students. It would help the students by making all the transactions related to the hostel online, and as for the staff, they will receive a detailed report of what the students buy, when they are making the transactions, and how much they are spending. If this is connected to the inventory management system, the parents will be able to know what the students are buying, hence making the students more conscious about spending money.
Conclusion
As you can see, a good hostel management system will make life a lot easier for the hostel staff as well as for the students staying there. The overwhelming burden of hostel management is taken care of by the software, which means that hostel staff can focus on more important things such as the safety of the students in the hostel, for example. Technology has helped education in miraculous ways, and now it is working wonders for every aspect of it. To read more about the impact of technology in education, click here.
Teachmint is the leading ed-infra provider helping educational institutions improve their efficiency. With our offerings like LMS, attendance management, fee management system, and more, institutes can boost their productivity multifold.
