ABSTRACT

The status of computer application in schools is growing with increase in awareness of roles of computer in education. Many schools now see it as a necessity to introduce computer in their various departments for the effective and efficient dispensation of their service. For the time being teachers find it difficult to process the results of student within the short range of time given or available to them which ranges from the day the school examinations end to the day of vacation. This project is designed to help secondary schools in quick and error free results processing. It meets the various needs of teachers in results processing as described by some teachers in Federal Government College Enugu.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

A student’s result is the criteria for the measurement of the student’s capability in terms of academic work in the school. It is also used to measure a student’s capability in each subject offered by the student. Without an adequate results processing system, the aim for which results are produced may not be achieved, because of slightest mistake made during the process might lead to a very big problem, which may reduce or eradicate the ability to grade a student from his school result. For this reason an effective, efficient and error free results processing system should be designed and implemented in our schools for proper running of the schools system. This project is therefore embarked upon to design and implement a computerized results processing system for secondary schools using Federal Government College Enugu as a case study to know the problems encountered in the manual system and how these problems can be solved.

1.1 BACKGROUNG TO THE STUDY

The Federal Government College Enugu (FGCE) is a secondary or high school in Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria. The school was created by the Nigerian government in 1973 as one of the federally-funded "Unity schools" to bring together students from regions across Nigeria. The school has facilities for both boarding and day students. Students range from Junior Secondary One (JS1) through Senior Secondary Three (SS3). Students must complete the Federal Common Entrance Exams in order to apply for attendance. There are approximately 3000 students in attendance. The secondary school has produced a number of prominent alumni, including a former governor of ( Kaduna State), the serving Cross River State

Governor, ministers, captains of industry, and a number of other highly placed individuals in society. FGCE has an outstanding academic reputation and boasts an enviable history of sports triumphs. The school is situated on a large campus in independence layout, an upscale residential area in the heart of Enugu, the capital city of Enugu State. The school has been outstanding in academic performance and was honored as the Best Unity in WAEC May/June 2002. Mr IC Adigwe and Mr SN Abia were some of the great leaders who were past principals of this great school.

1.2   STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Personal interview with some staff of Federal Government College Enugu revealed that the manual method adopted in results processing pose some problem, these problems include the following:

1. POOR SECURITY OF DOCUMENTS: Printed documents often get lost at each point in time some of these documents get eaten by termite and other insects, some are taken away by intruders while other are easily misplace by those in charge of it.

Students also may have access to the result sheet and increase their scores.

2. UNTIMELY PROCESSING RESULTS: The period of time available for the processing of results makes the job through for teachers. This short period of time which ranged from the end of the exams to the day of vacation makes teachers work round the clock to make sure vacation, but most of the times teachers find it impossible to cope with this short period of time,

as a result of this results are ready sometimes weeks after vacation.

3. PRODUCTION OF INACCURATE RESULTS:Sometimes mistakes are being made by teachers during the calculation of total scores of a student in a particular subject, average scores and grades of students this lead to the production of inaccurate results.

1.3   AIM AND OBJECTIVES

All efforts in this research are geared towards the gathering of sufficient information’s that would help in making useful suggestions for the alleviation of manual processing of results in secondary schools. Considering the processing speed, storage and retrieve of information facilities, the computer becomes indispensable in results processing. The aim and objectives of this project is to design software which can perform the following.

1. Eradicate the frustration student undergo when one students result is given to another or when one students, results is miscalculated due to manual error.

2. Reduce the length of time spent trying to process students results.

1.4 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This project is organized in chapters and each treats a particular topic of the project. Chapter one is the introductory part of the project showing why undertaken the project. It also identities the problems encountered in the manual operation, the purpose of the study, the delimitations and limitations are in deeded. Also the terms relevant to the project are defined. Chapter Two is the review of literature. Chapter three is the design of the study. The methodology of the research is discussed in this chapter, the source of data and the procedure for collecting the data is also included. Chapter four is the methodology of the system design which is classified into functioned specification and technical design stage. Chapter five is the documentation of the project.

1.5    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Research carried out in the College shows that results are still being processed manually. This leads to various problems which include,

a)   Insecurity of results.

b)   Duplication of results.

c)   Loss of results when files are been carried from one table to the other.

d)   Wrong calculations during computation.

This project will achieve the following:

i)   Increase in deficiency

ii)  Easy detection and correction of errors.

iii) Reduce pressure of work on examination officers.

iv) Makes computation less labor intensive.

1.6   SCOPE OF THE STUDY                                                       

This project work covers the registration of students and computation of students examination score in order to process their results.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Automation: This is the use of control system such as computer to control and process data, reducing the need for human intervention

Database: This refers to a large store of related data on a computer that can be access and modified by the user.

Password: This is a secret code that a user must type into a computer to enable him access it or its applications. This is made up of numbers, letter, special character or a combination of any of the above categories.

Record System: The act of using a computer system to store and update information/data sequentially in order to keep file security.

Computerized: To convert a based system to start using a computer system to control, organize and automate something.

Data Entry: This is the standard input device through which the system gets more of the instructions and commands

Research: A careful study of something, especially to discover new facts or information about it.

System: Set of computer component (that is, the assembling of hardware, software and peripherals to function together.)

IMS (Information Management System) is a database and transaction/record management system that was first introduced by IBM in 1968. Since then.

Information: Information (shortened as info or info.) is that which informs, i.e. an answer to a question, as well as that from which knowledge and data can be derived (as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts)

Information system: A computer Information System (IS) is a system composed of people and computers that processes or interprets information. The term is also sometimes used in more restricted senses to refer to only the software used to run a computerized database or to refer to only a computer system.