A decision support system used to aid in the distribution of extra lessons to teachers

Abstract

This thesis describes the design and building of an artefact which automatically distributes extra lessons to teachers who are present on that particular day and are less loaded, to replace sick teachers or those who are temporarily absent for particular lessons in secondary schools. This artefact, which is considered to belong to the vast family of Decision Support Systems, has to allocate extra lessons according to the stringent rules stipulated in the teachers' collective agreement and must be flexible enough to allow its users to change, modify and suggest alternatives as required by the senior management team. The artefact loads data from the scheduler which is being currently used by all Government Secondary Schools and stores the data into a separate database, specifically designed for the purpose of assigning extra lessons. From the schedule of lessons stored in the database during import, an algorithm was designed to schedule extras automatically. The artefact tries to be fair and to obtain an acceptable human resource levelling. On the other hand, the artefact allows the user to override the automatic scheduling when the senior management team deems necessary. This was done due to humanitarian issues and due to management necessities. The scheduling of extra lessons is automatically recorded together with the time table schedule in the tailor-made database for referential purposes and for statistical analysis by the Decision Support System.