What criteria should you use to choose preschool management software?
Suitable preschool management software serves all four user groups (teachers, parents, school leaders and office staff, and classroom screens), handles children's data in line with Vietnam's Personal Data Protection Law No. 91/2025/QH15, lets the school export all of its data, and comes with a clear rollout and training plan. Price should be compared only after these criteria are met.
This guide is a neutral checklist for schools. We do not rank or compare products on the market; you can use the same questions with every vendor.
Disclosure: EYC builds Early Years Circle, an operating platform for early childhood education with four experiences — Teacher, Family, Admin and TV — in one cloud environment. Read this as the view of a software developer and check it against your school's real needs.
What the software must do for each role
The fastest way to evaluate is to walk through one working day for each person, rather than reading a feature list.
Teachers
- Attendance and daily records for meals, naps, toileting and health with few taps, on a phone or tablet.
- Observation notes and comments aligned with the class education plan, with photos whose audience can be controlled.
- Messages to the parents of their own class without using personal social media accounts.
- Stable operation on weak connections, syncing when the network returns.
Parents
- See information about their own child only: attendance, meals, notices, calendar, fees due.
- Submit absence requests, medicine instructions and messages through the school's official channel.
- Know clearly what data about their child is collected, who can see it, and how to withdraw consent. See parent–school communication apps.
School leaders and office
- Manage child records, classes, teachers, enrolment and class transfers.
- Collect and reconcile fees; report headcount, attendance and meals by day and month.
- Role-based permissions and a log of who accessed or changed a child's data.
- Manage several campuses (if any) on one system.
Classroom TV
- Show content chosen by the teacher: daily schedule, songs, activity photos, general notices.
- Never show sensitive personal information about children on a shared screen.
- Simple controls and the ability to lock out content not on an approved list. See classroom TV displays in preschools.
Children's data criteria: the non-negotiables
Personal Data Protection Law No. 91/2025/QH15 took effect on 1 January 2026. Its Article 24 deals specifically with children's personal data: the legal representative exercises the data-subject rights on the child's behalf (except in the cases in Article 19(1)); processing that publishes or discloses private-life information or personal secrets of a child aged 7 or older requires the consent of both the child and the legal representative; and processing must stop when the person who consented withdraws consent or when a competent authority so requires.
Decree 356/2025/ND-CP guides the Law. Its Article 21 lists types of personal data processing services; clause 5 covers collecting and processing personal data through education apps or software with monitoring elements such as attendance, video recording, behaviour scoring and emotion recognition. Organisations providing personal data processing services must meet the conditions in Article 22. Schools should ask vendors how they have determined their obligations under these rules and request supporting documents.
Practical criteria to check:
- Parental consent per purpose (for example, photos shared inside the class versus published publicly), recorded and withdrawable.
- Role-based access: teachers see only their class, parents only their child.
- Access and change logs for children's data, visible to the school.
- Encryption in transit and at rest; strong authentication for admin accounts.
- Clear rules on where data is stored, for how long, and how it is deleted when a child leaves.
- No use of children's data for advertising or model training without an explicit agreement.
- An incident process for notifying data breaches.
If the software has AI features
Vietnam's AI Law No. 134/2025/QH15 places education among sectors needing stricter risk management (Article 6) and calls for preventing risks in assessing and classifying learners. For features such as automatic comments, behaviour scoring or emotion recognition, ask about the purpose, how teachers review outputs and how the feature can be switched off. More in children's data protection in preschools.
Integration and data export
Data belongs to the school. Before signing, make sure you can get your data out when you change vendor or need to report to authorities.
- Export all child, class, attendance and fee records to common formats (CSV, Excel) without surprise charges.
- Import initial data from existing files so nothing has to be retyped.
- Connect to accounting software, payment gateways or other tools via API or files, if the school needs it.
- A contractual commitment to hand over and delete data when the contract ends.
Rollout, training and support
- A phased rollout: pilot with one or two classes, then expand.
- Separate training for teachers and office staff, plus short guides for parents.
- Vietnamese-language support with stated response times; service levels (SLA) as specified under contract.
- A release schedule and how changes are communicated to the school.
- A fallback plan for network or system outages during drop-off and pick-up.
10 questions to ask every preschool software vendor
Use this table during demos. Ask vendors to answer in writing so comparisons are fair.
| Area | Question | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Functions | How many steps does a teacher's day take in the software? | A demo using the school's own sample data |
| Children's data | How do parents give and withdraw consent? | Consent screens, privacy policy template |
| Children's data | How have you determined your obligations under Decree 356/2025/ND-CP? | A written explanation and related documents, if any |
| Security | Who in your company can access the school's data? | Access policy, access logs |
| Storage | Where is data stored, for how long, and how is it deleted? | Contract clauses |
| Data export | How do we export all data to files? | Try an export during the demo |
| AI | Which features use AI, and how do teachers review and switch them off? | Feature description, admin settings |
| Rollout | What is the timeline, training and who is responsible? | A written rollout plan |
| Support | If something breaks during drop-off, who do we contact and how fast is the response? | Support commitments as specified under contract |
| Cost | What does total cost over three years include? | A detailed quote including extra charges |
Free versus paid: how to think about it
This guide does not list prices. What matters is the business model behind the product: free software still needs revenue to run servers, security and support. Ask where that revenue comes from (advertising, add-on services, later paid tiers) and how it affects children's data.
For paid plans, compare total cost of ownership: licence, implementation, training, devices (tablets, TVs), per-child or per-campus fees, and switching costs if you change systems later.
A 6-step selection process
- Step 1 — List the school's real problems (for example, slow fee collection, parents lacking information) and the main users.
- Step 2 — Build a list of mandatory criteria from this guide, especially children's data.
- Step 3 — Invite two or three vendors to demo the same scenario.
- Step 4 — Send the question table and collect written answers.
- Step 5 — Pilot with one class for a few weeks and gather teacher and parent feedback.
- Step 6 — Review the contract: data, export, support, termination. For the bigger picture, see AI in early childhood education. For the full roadmap, see preschool digital transformation.
Frequently asked questions
What are the basic functions of preschool management software?
Usually child and class records, attendance, meal, nap and health logs, notices and parent messaging, fee collection and reports for school leaders. Many schools also need content for classroom screens.
Do preschools need parental consent to use management software?
In many cases, yes. Article 24 of Law 91/2025/QH15 says the legal representative exercises rights on the child's behalf and sets out specific cases that require consent. Schools should design purpose-specific consent forms and take legal advice for their own situation.
What should we watch for if the software records attendance or video?
Decree 356/2025/ND-CP (Article 21, clause 5) lists data processing through education software with monitoring elements such as attendance, video recording, behaviour scoring and emotion recognition as a type of personal data processing service. Ask the vendor for a written explanation of its obligations.
Should we choose free or paid software?
There is no general answer. Look at the revenue model, how data is used, the support level and the three-year total cost, and match them to the school's needs.
Will we lose our data if we switch preschool software?
Not if the contract includes data export and handover. Test an export during the demo and put the commitment in the contract.