CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTINGS

I. Introduction

Technology plays a vital role in our everyday living. Without it, human life will

remain stagnant. This helped us lessen the workload with less effort and time through the

tools and machines created for further experiment of life. Computers, which is the

masterpiece of technology, are multi-purpose tools helping people in various things such

as communicating globally through internet, entertainment, paperworks, record keeping,

gathering information and analysis and creating software system for specific purpose.

Software engineers, or even I.T professionals and computer geeks create software system

to achieve a specific goal or purpose efficiently and effectively. Also, this system lessens

the workload and the time of its users.

In the modern time, people often use a computer-based information system. This

computer-based information system collects, process, stores, analyzes and disseminates

information for a specific purpose typically to provide feedback mechanism to meet an

objective. It processed the data that converted into useful information and can be stored.

That stored information is called database and is manageable. It provides fast, centralized

access to database and is easy to customizable to meet the user’s needs. Manual

procedures that waste a lot of time and effort because of its long process are converted

into more reliable, efficient, and timeless computer-based information system. Example

of this conversion of procedure is the enrollment of schools.

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Enrollment is the completion of registration process, and affords the full rights and

privilege of student status. Enrollment is accomplished by the payment or other

satisfaction of tuition and fees and by the satisfaction of other obligations to the school.

Registration is the process of actually enrolling in courses. Registration occurs once one

had been granted admission and had confirmed the acceptance of a seat offer. Often,

payment of a non-refundable registration deposit is required before one can register.

Enrollees will receive information regarding registration for their first term prior to their

starting.

Enrollment serves as the vital part in the life of every student upon entering

schools or universities, either in public or in private. It gives students the impression on

how the whole institute manages and manipulates the entire body. Moreover, enrollment

serves as the first experience of all students by which he/she takes part either individually

or with company of a parent or some relatives. Enrollment is considered as the first step

or procedure that must be done by old students within a particular institute before the

semester per school year starts, but for those freshmen or first year students(new

students), they are obliged to take an admission test, to know and assess them the right

course to engage to, followed by a scheduled interview in order to give them brief

instructions and information about certain issues with regards to the school’s policies,

institutional programs as well as personal information, health, economic status, so on, and

so forth. Good enrollment is always an asset in any school, pertaining to the fast payment,

assessment procedures, and easy transaction with high rate of accuracy. Therefore, good
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enrollment within the schools or universities, if present, can be described as civilized,

organized, accurate and professional.

Having a good enrollment, computerization of it may be required and this can be

called Computerized Enrollment Information System. Computerized Enrollment

Information system is the computerization of enrollment system designed for the

registration and assessment of the students as well as the billing of their payments which

are recorded through database. Through this system, the school is capable of gathering

students’ information which is needed for future purposes. School administrator,

registrar, cashier and even the faculty may lessen their workload when enrolling students,

which is a long process since it will go through registration process, payment process and

even sectioning process in which each is handled by different school staff. This can be

reduced through system that is accurate, reliable and efficient. The system can be

accessed by administrator, registrar, cashier and teachers. In the registration process, the

registrar gathered the students’ information and requirements needed for the enrollment.

From here, the payment will occur and will be directed to the payment process. In the

payment process, the cashier is responsible for the fees that are needed to be paid by the

parents whether in full or installment basis. Through database, each of data from different

processes is connected.

In order to catch up with modern technology, the researcher aims to create a

computerized enrollment and billing system for Misericordia Dei Catholic School

(MDCS) that was only established in 2011 and it is located in Pachoca, Calapan City
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Oriental Mindoro. The word Misericordia Dei is a Latin word which means “Mercy of

God”, and was used as the title of the apostolic letter by Pope John Paul II to foster and

reemphasize the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The present school

director of the MDCS is Rev. Fr. Nestor J. Adalia; the present school prinicipal is Mrs.

Yurlen Latorza, and the present school registrar/cahier is Mrs. Aiza Glicel S. Bonilla.

With the computerized enrollment and billing system, the staff and the students

will have a smooth enrollment process in a much lesser time. The students’ information is

inputted and the payment can be processed by the registrar, cashier, and administrator

who have different task on the system.

II. Background of the Study

Nowadays, technology is so advanced that human jobs that are done manually are

now done automatically and efficiently. In short, technology lessens the work. With

technology, tasks are done fast with minimal error. It makes tasks cost-effective as well.

Enrollment in an institution such as Misericordia Dei Catholic School (MDCS)

used a computer in enrolling every student. However, they only used programs like

Microsoft Office applications to keep the list of enrolled students and the payment is

done manually. This makes the process tedious for the MDCS staff that is also a

workload, and also for the students and parents who are on queue waiting for the process

and be officially enrolled. That’s why the researcher came up to the computerization of

enrollment system of MDCS for the convenience during enrollment period. This will

lessen the workload of the staff of the MDCS in terms of enrollment and payment
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because it will automatically compute the total fees depending on the students’ grade

level and fees such as book fee, miscellaneous fee, tuition fee, etc.

III. Statement of the Problem

The main focus of the study is the computerization of Enrollment System of

MDCS. Precisely, this study is expected to answer the following question below:

1. What are the needed information in making the Computerized Enrollment

Information System of MDCS?

2. What programming language would be used in making the computerized

enrollment system?

3. What are the benefits of the computerized enrollment system to both staff and

students?

IV. Hypothesis

H0: There is no significant difference between the existing manual enrollment system

with that of the proposed system.

H1:There is a significant difference between the existing manual enrollment system

with that of the proposed system.

V. Theoretical Framework

This study used the Open Model System derived from General System Theory of

Ludwig von Bertalanffy. The term “general system theory” was officially started in

1920s and from that time, many authors have also added a good number of writings on
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the system theory. This theory is used on a number of subjects such as social science,

mathematics, philosophy, engineering, and biology.

Ray(2000) noted general system theory came out of researchers’ abilities in

carrying out research on a number of homologies between works in physical, social,

science and biological. He defined system as a composition of many components which

are somehow connected to form a whole concept. In addition to this, Miller(2001)

defined a system as a collection of more related assumptions, propositions and definitions

which can work with a reality as a complex interaction of matter and energy. Similarly,

Lazzlo and Krippnern(1998) cited that general system theory is a procedure based on

methods of the universe in which all the sections are mutually related. They defined

system as a circuit of information flow and this circuit are involve in receiving of input

originated from the environment. Therefore, the opinions of that input are referred to the

available codes and the system response. Bertalanffy(1968) defined system which is a

complex of interacting elements and that they are open to, and interact with their

environments. In system theory, the term “environment” is the set of all objects whose

attributes are change by the behavior of the system.

From all of this, a system may be defined as a set of elements itself and with the

environment. There are two types of system:

“Closed system”- a system is closed if no materials enters or leave.

“Open system”- when there is an export and import of materials.

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Fig. 1.0 Open System Model

Input

System Environment

Output
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VI. Conceptual Theory

This study is a computer-based information system wherein information is needed

for the accomplishment of the purpose of the system. The purpose of the system is the

enrollment of the pupils systematically which also hasten up the process when it comes to

payment when enrolling.

Table 1. Conceptual Paradigm of the proposed system

Input Process Output

Manual Registration of students, Stored information of

Enrollment System enrollment of classes, students written in paper

calculation of accounts and

payments

Computerized Enrollment Registration of students, Data is stored in database

and Billing System of enrollment of classes, available to view and to be

MDCS calculations of accounts and printed.

payment
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Fig. 2.0 showing flow of Automated Enrollment System

Input Process Output

Students’ personal Saving Enrolled students,

information, information, printed list of
average grade, and classification of student and
payments students according invoice
to average grade
and computation
of payment.

Storage

Database wherein
all information
were saved
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VII. Operational Framework

The proposed computerized enrollment and billing system of MDCS will be

operated by the administrator, cashier, and registrar. The students will inquire\apply for

enrollment to the registrar or administrator wherein they will input the students and their

parents’ information to the system and save it to the database. For new students, the

administrator or the registrar will be the one who will assign their grades and section, and

for the old students, the grade will automatically assign based on their previous grade

level. Once the system computes the total fees that are needed to pay by the students, the

cashier will issue an invoice or a receipt, and the students or their parents will give the

payment to the cashier, who will save the payment transaction to the database.
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Administrator\ Inquiry/Application Students

Registrar

Assignation of
Grade and Section
Invoice

Payment
Enroll Student

ENROLLMENT AND Total Fees Administrator\

Cashier
BILLING SYSTEM

Figure 3.0 shows the main flow of Computerized Enrollment and Billing System
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VIII. Significance of the Study

This section states the benefits of the study to the following.

MDCS – this study will mostly benefit MDCS since it will lessen the workload of the

administrator, cashier and registrar. With this system, enrollment time and procedure are

cut short. They can also check if the requirements needed for the enrollment of students

are complete or not.

Parents- the benefits to the parents to this study are they will have a short time enrolling

their children and paying fees. They don’t have to worry if they lost the receipt because it

is recorded in the system. This system also record the requirements kept by the school so

that if some student is incomplete in the requirements, it can be easily identified or

checked.

Students- when the students enrolled for themselves, they will also benefit like the

parents.

Researcher- This study honed the researcher’s programming skills and made him

appreciate more the importance of information systems.

Future researchers- The study serves as a guide for similar studies.

IX. Scope and Limitation of the Study

This focuses on the computerization of the enrollment system and billing system

of MDCS only. This is designed to fulfill the task of staff of MDCS accurately and within

a short period of time; also to store students’ information systematically and safely within

the system. The range of the proposed system is from Grade 1 to Grade 6 only.
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This study is for the MDCS only in which only them can use the system the

researcher will develop. This will not include the payroll of the MDCS staff. Printing of

list of enrolled student, payment history, invoice and student list are included, but not the

printing of students’ information. The system does not cover the enrollment of failed

student, but once they passed, they are able to be enrolled using this system. Also, the

system has a short life span because of the fast improving technology, which make the

system obsolete in the future.

X. Definition of Terms

These terminologies were gathered and defined by the researcher for better and

clearer understanding on how they were used in the study.

Computerized Enrollment System and Billing System- a system designed to perform

a certain task such as enrollment and payments.

Database- a collection of records that were saved or stored.

Input - common term for a data that will be putted to process.

Output – the result that came from processed data.

Process – series of action or steps needed to achieve a particular goal or purpose.

System – a set of elements interrelated with the elements itself and the environment.