Development of online clearance system for an educational institution

Abstract

It is mandatory for graduating students of an educational institution to exit the system in an orderly manner. The students usually do this through the mandatory clearance process. The manual process is time-consuming and stressful as the students have to move from place to place to get their clearance document endorsed. It has also been found to be vulnerable to fraud and other vices. The few automated ones also exhibit some limitations in their functionalities such as non-user-friendly interface, lack of adequate information to user, non-prioritization of processes and so on. This study therefore proposes a system that overcomes the issues with manual processing while improving on the identified automated ones. The study adopts a case study approach of a complete manual system for a leading institution of learning in Southwest Nigeria, with a view to evolving a working prototype. First a thorough understanding of the existing procedure is carried out. A new system that is web-based is built using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) along with PHP for business logic layer, CSS for proper rendering of display pages of the front end and MySQL for the data layer. The new system will reduce the amount of time and efforts wasted on students’ clearance as well as reduce cost incurred on paper by the institution. Another advantage is that students can also initiate and monitor their clearance status from any location they are thereby eliminating the need to travel or be physically present.