The creators of the comprehensive school management program SmartTerm, which launched in Jamaica last year, are now sponsoring one of Jamaica’s leading athletics competition.
As associate sponsors for the Jamaica Independent Schools Association (JISA) Prep Championship, the company is working on forging partnerships in the Jamaican education system, said the Director of Communications Theon O’Connor.
The tournament’s goals aligns with the values of SmartTerm and supports the educational programming the company champions, added O’Connor.
“Our mission is to help students and a big part of that is helping students both inside and outside of the classroom,” he said. “We care about their development outside of learning in class so it was simple for us to come on board for JISA.”
Our mission is to help students and a big part of that is helping students both inside and outside of the classroom
SmartTerm is a platform which facilitates communication between parents, educators and students regarding their classroom performance. The program can also be used as a managing system for school records. It was launched in Jamaica in July 2016 and now runs in three schools.
Four more schools are in the process of converting their school management systems to SmartTerm before the next school year starts but pilots will run first, according to O’Connor.
The company encountered several challenges in the initial stages of their launch. Their July release delayed them with the chance to get school officials, already preparing for the school year, to get on board, said O’Connor. And schools converting from manual to digital would take longer.
“This definitely affected the way the program ran — a lot of schools were hearing about the system but a lot don’t have an idea of how the learning or the school management system worked,” he said. “Then there are schools that have their files on paper, and it would be difficult to explain and how to get it to work for them.”
O’Connor said now that SmartTerm is sponsoring a big program and said the collaboration with other organizations was a chance for the company to become known names in the educational process of Jamaica.
“This is the beginning of a great partnership for years to come,” he said. “Our hope is to be able to sponsor other things. We want to support various programs that pertain to students, and anything regarding student development.”
