ABSTRACT

The idea of developing an automated school fees payment system for Anglican Girls Grammar school was hatched due to the lack of a suitable IT based solution to fees processes in the school. The school has a large number of students who pay all the school fees through cash deposits, electronic funds transfer or bank drafts to the school’s accounts in specific bank branches. These methods of paying fees have not been efficient enough especially during periods of tests and examinations when most of the students are paying fees to meet the requirements for entering examination rooms. The process of paying school fees is characterized by long queues, too much waiting by students and congestion at banks where payments are made. This has always resulted in students missing to sit for their tests and/or examinations while they are queuing to make payments.

It was upon such background that the researchers embarked on the project to develop of an alternative system that enables online fees payment by students and their sponsors. Some currently known school fees management systems available off-the-shelf are not fit for most of the schools in Nigeria and study have shown that they are prematurely abandoned due to their unsustainability. The new system is tailored to contain all necessary features to suite the school fees management system in Anglican Girls Grammar School. The integrated school fees system uses web based technology to support profiling of students, fees payments, payment verification and receipt printing. PHP was used as a server scripting language, HTML was used for client scripting and MySQL was used for databases. The system integrates all this modules through the use of one main database. The developed showed success when tested with the school.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

Fees payments by students in Anglican Girls Grammar School (AGGS) are made through cash deposits, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and Bank drafts to the school’s accounts in specific bank branches (AGGS, 2020). Plymouth and Martin (2009) stress that, “For nearly every business, the simple act of collecting payments from consumers is actually quite complex. Organizations want to make it easy and convenient for customers to pay, so they offer multiple choices of payment types and channels”. Therefore, the project provides an alternative method that enables secure online fees payment by students and their sponsors. AGGS has a large number of students who are supposed to pay all the school fees through cash deposits or bank drafts to the school’s accounts in specific bank branches. This method of paying fees has not been efficient enough especially during periods of tests and examinations when most of the students are paying fees to meet the requirements for entering examination rooms. The process of fees payment in such periods is characterized by long queues, too much waiting by students and congestion at banks where payments are made. Students queue to pay fees and those who do not reach counters within the banks‟ working hours are advised to return the next day.

This process has always resulted in students missing to sit for their tests and/or examinations while they are queuing to make payments. It has also resulted to too much costs and a lot of time used in transferring and withdrawing money whenever sponsors of students make money transfers to students who can pay school fees at specific bank branches. The process requires sponsors of students from wherever they are to send money to students through either banks, mobile money or any other possible way(s) so that students pay school fees or use EFT that require swift codes to pay fees to the school. This consumes time and sponsors incur extra costs in this process of sending money to students. It was upon this background that the researchers suggested an alternative method which enables secure online fees payment by students and their sponsors.

1.2    Statement of the Problem

The available modes of fees payment to Anglican Girls Grammar School are through cash deposits, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and bank drafts have caused long queues, students missing to sit for their tests and examinations, and loss of money intended for fees while waiting to reach bank counters to make payments among others.

AGGS and other schools across the country has been looking for complete solution for school fees management but most of the systems available on the market either doesn’t addresses full payment feature or has plenty unnecessary features. Some complete system on the market may not be suitable for the local education system since they may be developed for school in other countries. These systems have their own databases there by duplicating data among these system since you can have a student details table in each of the separate systems.

This project curbs the above problems by developing of an integrated school fees payment system whereby a single large database will be created and all other application like the students profiling, fees payment, payment verification and receipt printing will be built upon a single database. The web-based technology enables students and their sponsors to securely pay university fees online from wherever they are using credit and debit cards and from whichever location.

1.3    Aim and Objectives of the Study

The main aim of this project is to develop an automated school fees payment system for Anglican Girls Grammar School that will aid in managing all school fees payments. To achieve the stated aim, the following specific objectives were laid out:

i.                   Develop using web-technologies school fees payment system available for students and sponsors wherever their location.

ii.                 The system will generate invoices at the beginning of each term and facilitates fees payment keeping a record of all the transactions done by the student and the amount a student owes the school

iii.              the system will capture and store the students’ profile

1.4    Scope and Limitation of the Study

The study was carried out in Anglican Girls Grammar School and was intended to offer an extra channel for fees payment, through the development of a secure online fees payment system. The study focused on the development of a web based system that allows secure online fees payment. The system will be used by students and their sponsors to pay all kinds of university fees online, and by university accounts offices to verify students’ payments. The system captures financial information after payments are made. The limitation of this project is that it focuses on only fees payments and doesn’t take of examination and tests results.

1.5    Significance of the Study

Literature asserts that, for nearly every business, the simple act of collecting payments from consumers is actually quite complex and yet organizations want to make it easy and convenient for customers to pay