Browsing by Author "Da Costa, Clifford"

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    Timetabling in Tanzania secondary schools
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1981) Da Costa, Clifford
    Timetabling methods in schools vary the world over. In most countries, the methods used entail the use of the computer. The inaccessibility of computers to schools in Tanzania makes the use of manual methods very necessary. In this thesis, some of the timetabling methods in operations research which are conducive to a manual approach have been looked into. I have first looked at the timetabling problem as a classical transportation problem. After formulation, it is applied to a practical situation where a number of drawbacks are made evident in this form of approach. In view of this, the classical transportation problem is then modified using the row partial sum idea. Though this solves some of the drawbacks it does not do so for all of them. Another approach which treats the timetabling problem as an assignment problem is then suggested. This approach lends itself to the idea of timetabling per period. This method solves the problem using flood's technique (or reduced Matrix technique} which has been modified to solve the timetabling problem. This method too -has its drawbacks because it involves too many manual operations, especially for large schools necessitating the use of the computer. The Assignment problem is then modified so that the "assignment table" contains admissible and inadmissible cells for each period in the timetabling process. The proof for the procedure for the construction of a maximal number of independent cells (Konig's and Egervasry's Theorem) is then given. This approach is then used in a practical school situation to illustrate its applicability. This method could be used to supplement existing timetabling methods prevalent in Tanzanian secondary schools.