DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN AUTOMATED SCHOOL FEES PAYMENT SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

Automated school fees payment system is a research work that will help build an effective information management system for Anglican Girl's grammar secondary schoolwithin the admin department. The designed software will serve as a more reliable and effective means of documenting school fees payment and cash payment and removing all forms of error in the manual method of their recording system. This project work made use of data collected from the secondary school library, and journals.  The aim of this project work is to achieve the following; to effectively and efficiently process students school fees payment and document it, to provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal inclinations and interest and to provide borderless access to ensure prompt retrieval. The implementation of the computer-based school fee payment documentation system was carried out using Visual basic languages, Access database. The result obtained from this work was to design an efficient system that will help to enhance the payment system of school fees without any inch so as to give room for accuracy and transparency. In conclusion, the work met all the objectives intended. It is, however, recommended for use by all grammar college.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The essence for one going to school is for better survival tomorrow wherein becoming what he or she is capable of becoming what he or she wants in life. And the desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind and every human being whose mind is not debauched will be willing to give all that is required of him or her to get knowledge.

It is on this basic idea that knowledge oriented organization (school) has been set up as a ground for people to go in and learn in respond to paying for their acquired“knowledge for tomorrow's success.

According to Oxford Dictionary of Current (6th Edition), fee is defined as an amount of money that one pay for professional services.

Simply put, school fee is that fixed interval payment made by a student or students to the school he or she attends.

From the definition, one can outline that school fee payment supposed to be in a regular interval that is timely, although sometime may not be that ready by the student due to some financial lapses.

Financial lapses poses a lot of problems to school management because of some pressing needs. However, when students refuse to pay their school fees on time the school management seems to lack money in the purse which at this render the management ineffective.

Apart from the management being ineffective financially, students also face barriers by not being allowed to write their examinations which is one of the academic frustration or setback. Using computer“ based system for fees payment necessitated this research in order to help solve this problems of either delayed fee payment, or the student not paying at all or the fee being misused/mismanaged or entangled with criminal attack either on the side of student at the course of payment or the side of bursary department/school management.

Using Anglican Girl's Grammar School Awkunanaw, Enugu state as a case study, the research has the intention of creating a software that could process students school fees payment to Anglican Grammar girl'sbank accounts and electronically lodging individual students fees indicating name, class,class category, registration number, level/class, date of payment, amount of money paid, academic session/ bank's name, account number, phone number,  and other personal records etc. This will enhance prompt payment and safe delivery and automatically stop the management and students from being frustrated financially and otherwise.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Anglican Girl's Grammar School, Awkunanaw, Enugu state was founded in the year 1962 and started on the 15th March with twenty-nine students. later two more students arrived to make a total of thirty one

students. The pioneer Principal is Miss

J.O. Emelumadu (now Mrs.Muo). Three non-tutorial staff were part of the foundation workers. they are namely: Beatrice Aloanza (cook), OnamNnji and Nweke Ede(Watchmen). The school operates with the following levels JSS and SSS for the SSS science, commercial and art schools.

In this school, there is need for automated method of keeping data, more so a greater need for an automatic school fees payment system. This would go a long way in alleviating the various problems and stress involved in the manual method of school fees payment and clearance in the institution. Moreover, the issue of delayed youth service as a result of inability to complete the tedious manual process of clearance which involves school fees clearance would be curtailed when this new system is implemented.

Hence it became imperative for a school fees system to eliminate the shortcomings of the manual system in place.

These days every sector is known with the word-computer. We can find computers at everywhere around us. In fact modern world will be incomplete without computers and their applications. It’s almost impossible to even imagine the modern facilities without the use of computers. For many individuals computer means PC, on which they can see movies, play games, prepare office sheets and manage daily planners. But this is just a page of the book of computers.

Computer means much more than a PC. A computer can simply be defined as a machine which takes instructions and perform computations and operations accordingly. These commanded instructions are known as programs and computers execute these programs to do an operation. At a time, a set of instructions can be given to a computer to perform several operations, simultaneously. This feature is a point of distinction for the computers.

Many types of computers are available these days. Depending on their usage and service application they can be classified in various categories. Supercomputers are capable of doing trillions of calculations in fraction of seconds, so they are used as controlling units of banking transactions; to keep records of railway, in schools to monitor school fees payment system in the bursary department and air transportations; to conduct decent flow of telecommunication and many more complex operations can be controlled, organized and conducted by using supercomputers.

On the other hand computers are also used in conducting simple operations like billing, ticket transactions, record maintenance, security analysis etc. And even computers (PC) are also used to do home based general activities like office sheet maintenance, day planner, entertainment etc. So computers are involved in every sector of life with different forms and different applications.

In modern word everything around us like GPS, ATM machines, cell phones, petrol pumps, portable play stations and all other modern devices use computer controlling units to conduct their featured operations. This simply implies that, when this new mode of operation is implemented in the bursary department of Our Saviour institute of Science, Agriculture and technology using computer the process will be efficient and free from error

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The processes of manual school fees for student in the school has resulted to a lot of problems which makes student not to write exams on time because of the slow rate of processing the school fess from the bursary department was done manually. And sometimes lead to the misplacement of the school fees tellers because of lack of adequate storage medium.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objectives of this project include:

i.        To provide a reliable and transparent system devoid of personal inclinations and interest

ii.       To provide a system that will relieve the staff and works of the academy the stress of search files or data manually

iii.      The new system will bring an end to the issues of lost receipts or of any kind as the records and data will be stored in the new system database which is safe and reliable for use and operation

iv.      The new system give a quick access to data and modification of records if necessary.

v.       To save time (fast inputting and accessing of records)

vi.      To design a system that will be capable of generating the student receipt when payment is made and recorded with all the corresponding awaiting bills is incurred

vii.     To ensure accuracy in the records

viii.    To ensure safety of the documents/records, because the system will be password aided to reduce access.

ix.      To ensure consistency of accounts and reduction of error due to damage

x.       To reduce forgery and loss of records by theft

1.4     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The project work will help in a good number of ways to ease the operation of the existing system in the school fees payment system. The new system will contribute to the record management of the school.

1.5    SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work is limited to school fees payment and documentation for the student of the Girl's grammar secondary school,Awkunanaw, Enugu. The software developed will be carried out using Visual Basic, MS Access, so as  to manage both the database and at the same time make the software.

1.6     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Some of the constraints that my have in one-way or another affected the outcome of this work include:

Resources: Is not free as the cost of hardware, software, website design, online distribution cost, maintenance of your site and time, all these factored into the cost of providing your product and service can be of limitation to this study.

Power supply: Availability of stable, efficient and reliable power supply is also a source of limitation this project as it depend only on source of energy to keep functioning

The bandwidth, which mean how quickly information travels between the computer where your web site is located (your Web server), and the visitor’s computer. Even though 56.6kbps modems, and even 10Mbps cable modems are becoming more common, many people on the internet are still using 28.8kbps modems.

Also this research work was faced with a lot of difficulties. Time constraint was one of the limiting factors in carrying out this study.

Financial constraint also constituted in carrying out an in depth study of this project. Limitations to the extent in which data could be collected also constituted a problem.

Irregularities in power supply also dealt harshly with the researcher.

In spite of the above mentioned difficulties, some data was collected which will be analysed later.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Computer Network: Computer Network is a system that connects two or more computers together using a communication link. (Bufts 1989) World Wide Web: World Wide Wed simply called www is the most important tool of the Internet. (Jeff 20010)

Databases: A systematically arranged collection of computer data, structured so that it can be automatically retrieved or manipulated. It is also called databank. (Adoca 2001)

File Transfer: Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet from one Internet user to another. Table of accounts on spreadsheets, design by a graphic artists, music sound files etc, can all be exchanged in this way. (Smith 1999)

Web Brower: This is a special kind of software that processes hypertext make-up language (HTML) document. In other words, a web browser is a computer program that interprets HTML command to collect, arranged and display the parts of a web page. (Cleff 2000)

Web Site: A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages organized by a specific college, organization company etc, containing web pages (good and commodities) on the Internet. Web site are stored on web servers. There are many web site and thousand of HTML pages on each web site. A web site is a treasure of information and entertainment. ( Donald 1986)

Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and phrase you find on web documents that you can click on as to jump to some other documents or Internet services. ( Clex 1990)

Offline: Disconnected from computer network; describes a computer terminal or peripheral device disconnected from a computer network. (Wikipedia 2011)

System: Set of computer components that is, an assembling of hardware, software and peripherals functioning together. ( Fans 2011)

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.

Record: is a document made or received in the course of a practical activity as an instrument or a by-product of such activity, and set aside for action or reference.

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.

Receipt: a piece of written note that attest for a payment done to one another caring the amount paid and balance if incurred usually signed by both party or one end.