COMPUTERIZED TRANSCRIPT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM A CASE STUDY OF CARITAS UNIVERSITY

CHAPTER ONE

1.0      INTRODUCTION

There were three fundamentally distinct education systems in Nigeria in 1990. The indigenous system, Quranic Schools and formal European-style education institutions. In the rural areas where the majority lived, children learned the skills of farming and other work, as well as the duties of adulthood, from participation in the community, this process was of ten supplemented by age based schools in which groups of young boys were instructed in community responsibilities by mature men. By the 1970s, education experts were asking how the system could be integrated into the more formal schooling of the young, but the question remained unresolved by 1990.

Western-style education came to Nigeria with the missionaries in the mid-Nineteenth century. Although the first mission school was founded in 1843 by Methodists, it was the Anglican Church missionary society that pushed forward in the early 1850s to found a chain of missions and schools. Followed quickly in the late 1850s by the Roman Catholics in 1887 in what is now Southern Nigeria, an education department was founded that began setting curricum requirement and administered grants to the mission societies. By 1914, when North and South were United into one colony, there were fifty-nine government and ninety-one

mission primary schools in the South; all eleven secondary schools, except for king’s college in Lagos, work run by the missions.

The education system focused strongly on examinations. In 1916 Fredrick Lugard, first governor of the Unified Colony, set up a school inspectorate. Discipline, building and adequacy of teaching staff were to be inspected, but the most points given to a school’s performance went to the numbers and ranking of it’s examinations results. This stress on examination was still used in 1990 to judge educational results and to obtain qualification for jobs in government and the private sector.

As more information is made available in a variety of formats and media and in a variety of locations, the need to manage information/data efficiently becomes more and more critical. Both staff and public users want access to stored information and want to access it more efficiently. It is the university policy to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of result processing operations (student record/grades), and services through the implementation of A computerized transcript management system.

1.1      Background of the study

Caritas university, Amorji Nike, Enugu, is a private university approved by the federal government of Nigeria on December 16, 2004. it was officially opened on January 21, 2005 by the Federal Ministry for Education, Prof. Fabian Osuji, the formal opening was on January 31, 2005. The pioneer students of 250 matriculated on May 28, 2005 in beautiful ceremony that attracted dignitaries both church and state. It is the second Catholic University in Nigeria founded by Rev. Fr. Prof. Emmanuel Paul Matthew Edeh CSSP, OFR. Although he founded the school, the proprietor of the University is the congregation of sisters, the Saviour, a religious congregation of Nums founded by him.

The vision of Caritas university is to reserve some of our wandering and teaming youth from further slide into academic and moral decay, and development and transformation of our society through sound and adulterated education. It’s mission is to discover, sanctify and apply the knowledge of science, environment central and engineering for human well-being and sound development of man for better society.

Caritas university’s goal is to give efficacy to the university’s motto and to it’s philosophy of education. We embrace not only sound education for professional skills and competency in various fields; but also maintain strict discipline. We train the mind, body, soul and spirit in the exercise

of obedience and self control. The students must not only be intellectually and professionally prepared for different tasks and roles in the world, they must also be morally equipped to face the world itself with all its tensions, conflicts, challenges and contradictions, we achieve this with the help of God Almighty who is with us always.

The philosophy is to promote sound education for professional skills and competencies in various fields with strict discipline. By discipline the university meant the training of the mind, body and soul and spirit to obedience and self control. Also to prepare the students to be intellectually and professionally sound for different tasks and roles in the word with its tensions, conflict, challenges and contradictions.

The university operates faculty system. Presently, the university operates six faculties. Education and Arts, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Management, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences.

1.2 Statement of Problem

This project research was conducted exclusively conducted in a caritas university located in a highly populated area that attends to too many students at a time, hence this research was able to track problem such as misplacement of student records, student’s grades, slow and

strenuous accessibility to students report and record, inaccurate record keeping and poor information management within the schools.

1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to identify the problems inherent in the existing system of transcript management systems, and to proffer a remedy to the existing problem. The solutions are as follows:

• Record and reports of students will be easily retrieved with increased data security.

• There will be reduction in the amount of resources, which in turn will lower the cost of processing of student’s transcripts, since information

will be stored in a database with reduced data Redundancy.

• School personnel can attend to many student without being over worked.

• There will be reduction in time used in retrieval of student’s files.

• Reduction in bulkiness of files and record.

• It will make available the storage room that was used for storage of files.

1.4 Significance of the Study

The project research haven’t identify the problem that was existing in the old system of operation , is designed specifically to come up with a more resound and effective system that will not only counteract this problem but also provides a detailed future plan that will give room for more information technological improvement in the transcript sector.

1.5 Scope of the Study

This research work are limited to providing a digital transcript’s information management system that will handle electronically both students and staff record , to enable easy accessibility and information flow within the university.

1.6 Limitation of the Study

This research work is limited to providing a more reliable information management system that will handle electronically the record of both student and staff within the university.

1.7 Organization of Work

This project work was arranged specifically arranged in chapters, hence it follows the order: Chapter One: General Introduction, Chapter Two

Literature    Review,     Chapter    Three:    System     Analysis,    Chapter     Four

System Design, and System Implementation, Chapter five: Summary,

Conclusion and Recommendation.