A Mobile Based Leave Application (M-LA) for government institutions: the case of the Teachers Service Commission of Kenya

Date
2014
Authors
Ngeno, Bernard Kipkoech
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
In government institutions in Kenya and particularly the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) , leave management has been done, but no consideration has been made for the possibility of mobile leave application. With the rapid changes in Information Communication Technology (ICT) and in particular introduction of m-government, mobile leave management is inevitable. Yet to be seen is a mobile leave management system being introduced in the TSC so as to cater for the ever changing ICT trends . The research shows that the normal way of Leave application by teachers is through the manual system which is not very efficient because a lot of paper work has to be done which takes a reasonable length of time to prepare and process. Due to the increasing number of teachers applying for leave, management of data becomes a difficult task . From the literature reviewed, it was found out that there have been some successful mgovernment applications in different sectors which included transport and energy. However, little has been done in the education sector which is still struggling to adapt to m-government. Factors that have led to failures in the current system were looked at and from them; focus was put on the applicability of M-LA in the government. The research involved development of a mobile leave application (M-LA) model that was used as a proof of concept in the research. This model application was implemented using, Java Micro Edition for mobile phones, php/html web application framework, windows operating system, MySQL as a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and other reliable open source products. It is this application together with a questionnaire and a set of interview questions that data was collected and analyzed. From the data collected, it was found out that the main factors that will lead to the introduction of a mobile leave application (M-LA) in the TSC include its availability, acceptability and speed of data processing by the user which bases itself on the cases of preceding applications. Finally, for further research, this thesis recommends a look at the security flaws that can be encountered in an m-government application as this can lead to serious loopholes in the system.
Description
A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements of Master of Science Degree in Mobile Telecommunications and Innovation (MSc MTI)
Keywords
ICT, e-Government and Mobile Leave Application (M-LA), M-Government, Mobile application, Kenya, Teachers Service Commission
Citation