How Lighthouse Education Group unified 9 campuses onto one platform
Replacing 4 legacy systems across Ghana and Nigeria with a single source of truth
across 2 countries
vs previous system costs
time reduction
up from 78%
across all campuses
Four systems. Nine campuses. No single truth.
When Lighthouse Education Group expanded from 3 to 9 campuses between 2021 and 2024, the IT architecture didn't scale with them. The Accra campuses ran an older UK-built MIS. The Lagos schools had implemented a Nigerian-built system. Two new campuses were still on spreadsheets.
Every month, the group finance director spent three weeks assembling a consolidated view. Data arrived as emailed spreadsheets in different formats, in different currencies, with different chart-of-accounts structures. By the time the board saw the consolidated report, it was already three weeks out of date.
The CEO couldn't answer a simple question — "Which campus has the worst fee collection rate right now?" — without a two-day turnaround.
- 4 different systems across 9 campuses
- Manual monthly consolidation taking 3 weeks
- No real-time group-level visibility
- Fee collection rate varying wildly across campuses
- Staff payroll managed separately per country
- Inconsistent parent communication methods
EducaSphere as the group operating system.
The implementation began with the Accra flagship campus as the pilot — a full deployment over six weeks, running in parallel with the legacy system for one term. Once the finance director confirmed the consolidated numbers matched, data migration began for the remaining campuses.
Each campus retained its own branded instance for day-to-day operations, with school-specific configurations for curriculum, fee structures, and report card formats. Group-level data was consolidated in real time without any manual intervention.
The payment gateway configuration was particularly significant for the Lagos campuses — native Flutterwave and Interswitch integration meant parents could pay fees by card, bank transfer, or mobile money, with instant reconciliation.
"We were running 9 schools on 4 systems and spending more time managing the data than managing the schools. EducaSphere gave us one truth. That changed everything about how we lead the group."
The board now sees everything. Live.
Within the first full term on EducaSphere, Lighthouse's group CFO had real-time visibility across all 9 campuses for the first time. The monthly consolidation process dropped from three weeks to four hours.
The fee collection improvement was immediate. Automated payment reminders sent via WhatsApp and SMS lifted the group-wide collection rate from 78% to 94% within two terms. Outstanding debt reduced by $340,000 in the first academic year.