ABSTRACT

The present world is technology driven as it employed in many fields in the performance of their operations. In the case of other institutions like in the field of medicine, this is evident in the use of automated student’s internship placement and management system worldwide to keep records of students involved in internship. Internship which is always carried out in the educational institution of HTTTC Kumba in the first (1st) of their second year and 2^nd cycle in their first year requires efficient and effective monitoring of students during internship. For this reason, IMS (Internship Management System) have been developed to achieve this purpose. However, in the case of HTTTC Kumba, Students internship placement and management system is majorly manual, which is the use of pen and paper. These records are there susceptible to destruction from pests and uncensored manipulation by both authorized and unauthorized personnel. This cruel method has resulted in problems in the area of authenticity, security, retrieval, storage, and exchange of information within HTTTC Kumba. This thesis aims to design and implement a computerized students internship placement and management of HTTTC Kumba. In developing this IMS, the waterfall model was used in system development through the stages of requirement elicitation from administrators of IMS to the system design and analysis using tools such as entity relationship diagram and class diagram which describes users (students) requirements. The system was implemented using python as the programming language and PostgreSQL as the database. The IMS enhances efficiency in correcting the problem earlier stated and it is an effective tool for easy analysis of data which will improve the educational institution of HTTTC Kumba operations. This system will be to give access to students, admin and the companies when being authorized r, it will also register students, help students to send application letters to companies and the company will be able to respond, as well as the ability of the administrator to manage the information in the systems.

Keywords : internship placement, management.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction

With the coming of the ICT, the world has today become a small global village. All the devices which are known as smart devices, are today connected to the internet and can access any information from across the world. At first, people used to waste time to communicate or to get access to information. But with the advent of technology and its expansion, the speed of communication has exponentially increased. One of the blessings of technology is web application. It helps users to interact with the system anywhere and anytime as long as they are connected to the internet. It is with regards to the evolution of technology and to save precious time in our daily activities that we came up with the idea of developing a web-based application for students’ internship placement and management of HTTTC Kumba. This system will be to give access to students, admin and the companies when being authorized, it will also register students, help students to send application letters to companies and the company will be able to respond, as well as the ability of the administrator to manage the information in the systems.

In this chapter, we shall take a look at the feasibility studies of our application from the problem we are solving to its objectives, scope and delimitation what it will do.

1.2 Background of the Study                                          

Since the dawn of the internet, the computer industry has grown rapidly and has made remarkable impact in the lives of everyone in a very short period of time. Many cooperation, educational institutions, finance companies rely on several tools that’s on computer and save a lot of time and money. Moreover, most professional institutions always carryout industrial training like the case of HTTTC where students of the 1^st (first) cycle in their 2^nd (second) year and the 2^nd cycle in their 1^st year always go for industrial training (internship) for the purpose to expose students to real work of environment experience and at the same time, to gain the knowledge through hands on observation and job executions. In the educational institution of HTTTC Kumba, they always encourage students to carry out internship and it is mostly the level 300 and level 6001 irrespective of the department that always go for internship. However, before students go for internship, they need to go through some processes like holding of seminars and so on. But, some authors like McMahon and Quinn [1] noted that, internships are supervised work experiences whereby students leave their institutions and get engaged in work related programmed, during which period they are closely supervised by experienced job incumbents. According to Furco [2]; internships are described as programs engaging students in service activities primarily for the purpose of providing them with hand-on experience that enhances their learning or understanding of issues relevant to particular area of specialization. Internships are therefore any carefully monitored piece of work or service experience in which an individual has intentional learning goals and reflects actively on what he or she understood as regards to theories of classroom learning (Cook et al, 2004; Hymon-parker,) [3]. As drafted on October 2015, internship was described as a form of experiential education that integrates knowledge and theory learned in the classroom, with practical application and skill development in a professional, work setting.

Internship programs have produced several successes such as in the case of Meagan Haire and Kristi Oloffson [4]. Bill Gates was once a congressional page, Oprah Winfrey worked at a CBS affiliate during her college years just to name a few [5].

The development of a web-based application for students’ internship placement and management is expanding over the past years. For instances, there are the registration system, clinic system, hotel management systems and so on, that are widely used. However, despite those technological advancements, the field of internship management is still unplanned especially in the third world countries like Cameroon. In Cameroon we have web-based applicant for student’s internship placement like the Buea institute technology. The internship process is still manual and inefficient in the institution of HTTTC Kumba which renders this institution a great challenge in recommending students a place where they can carry out their internship if they are unable to find one. Moreover, when students are about to carry out their internship, they need to go through some processes like holding of a seminar with the head of service for internship and during this seminar they are given the application letter where they edit it and put their respective names, matricule, option and department before being signed and stamped by the head of service for internship. After this, the signed and stamped application letters, envelopes and logbook are being given back to the students. However, this application letter is being inserted into the envelope where the students will address the envelope to apply in companies for internship. Moreover, when students report for internship training, they need to make a self-report manually by filling in the form in the logbook. While student’s undergoing the training, they have to write in the logbook activities they have carried.

 Other than that, students’ performance also assessed and recorded in the logbooks by supervisors, every turn of supervision. Furthermore, logbook can easily be damaged. Several studies done elsewhere indicate and conclude that a gap really exists between the quality of graduates produced and what the graduates demands (Mpairwe, 2010). For this and other reasons training institutions have accepted the need to seek mitigatory steps to bridge the gap. Papers can be misplaced, bias in allocating supervisors, poor monitoring of internees and lack of efficient means of controlling and management of students’ affairs during the internship. Therefore, research needs to be carried out in order to develop a computerized system that can effectively control and manage internship placement related affairs and can efficiently complement the management process as compared to the manual system.

1.3 Statement of the problem

Despite advances in technology, the student’s internship placement and management systems are running in a manual system. As such, the documentation of these internship placement is being done using papers and pen. The storage of this internship placement records are not properly kept. Some of these documents get dusty and because of lack of proper storage, some of these internship documents are seriously damaged by rats that feeds on them or water. With this kind of situation, it becomes highly difficult or not impossible to easily know students were about on internship. Moreover, there is a great challenge or problem in allocating supervisors, monitoring of student’s activities, managing internship records and also handling the growing number of students undergoing internship training. Moreso, the internship ends up not being effective because some students even end up not doing internship due to the fact that, they don’t have a place (enterprise or company) to do their internship. This is also seen in the case where, the (students) might have applied in companies or organizations late or they applied but the companies refused to take them due to the fact that the company is full or not having space for interns or maybe, applicant (student) don’t have a strong link with the company. With this particular case, this student will end up being stranded, discourage and frustrated and end up not doing internship because of lack of availability of companies.

This has triggered our mind to carry out an investigation in order to improve the industrial training management in HTTTC Kumba. In this system, we propose an online system that will facilitate the placement and the management of students’ internship in HTTTC Kumba.

1.4 Objectives of the study

1.4.1 Main objective

The main objective of this study is to develop a web-based application for student’s internship placement and management in HTTTC Kumba using Python.

1.4.2 Specific objectives

1. Ease placements of students during internship.
2. Easily identify the were about of students on internship

Facilitate the search of companies per department by students on internship