As a Study on the use of computers in the school administration in Manipur, I have visited ten (10) schools in Manipur - those that have computers in their schools. My general observation is that more number of computers were found to be possessed by the government schools. For my study I had selected five (5) schools amongst the government schools and the other five (5) from the privately run schools.

In spite of having more number of computers in government schools, trained computer staffs/ teachers are very rare. The private schools are harnessing the use of computer well as compared to government schools. Both government and private schools from the study, however, do not use computer for school administration properly. In some government schools, computers are found kept in a computer room without being used for many months. My first reaction was to ask what is the use of computer in school? It is neither used in the education process nor in school administration purpose. Of course, it is sometimes used - once or twice in a month. The school authorities think that the use of computer in school administration is only to type a few applications/letters; print it out and to store it in the computer. I have not found even a single computer used in the library of these schools. On the other hand, there is no proper room for computer in most of the schools. This adds up to the computers developing problems frequently due to lack of maintenance.

Use of computers can help in running of the school administration. It can be used during the admission procedures, storing of officials and students' records etc. The application of computers to student record keeping evolved from simple tabulation and keeping records of registration figures, attendance, grades in examination, admission, registration scheduling, dropouts and additions, class rosters, student aid, fees and scholarship, testing and evaluation, and enrollment. Computers can also be used in educational planning and decision-making, controlling, assisting instruction and simulation. Computers are helpful in administrating aptitude tests and achievement tests at the time of entrance. A computer software can process performance of the functions related with teacher's and employee's promotion avenues, records of the distribution of salary, holding of the student's examination, preparing scheme of examination, printing of papers and question papers, evaluation of answer sheets, preparing marks sheets, certificates etc.

Board of Secondary Education, Manipur and Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur has begun the use the computer in its examination procedures. The examination results of the matriculation and intermediate examinations can be followed up at their Internet site (http://www.manresults.nic.in) very easily.

Computer can solve the administrators who are faced with problems such as student registration, fiscal accountability, and maintenance of records. Nowadays, the computer and specialized softwares are playing a vital role in library management too. Books, articles, magazines etc. of the library can be searched through computer maintained catalogues. Several of these catalogues, indexes, bibliographies, and record, may be found scattered across several locations. Digital library is a new concept in the field of school administration. Internet and intranet connection on school in the developed countries are already used to access such libraries to search and get latest information in a short time.

Online admission system for schools is also becoming very popular in developed countries. Some Indian universities have also started adopting such online admission system recently. For instance, in Jamia Millia Islamia (Central Muslim University), a university in Delhi, online admissions has been introduced recently. One can download the form and summit the form along with payment of fee from anywhere in the world through Internet.

Earlier, computer was used only for education in school. In due course of time the use of computer in school administration has become popular. A computer can do help in the functions of a school accurately and smoothly. Records can easily be updated and kept up-to-date, complete in all respects and with quite accurate. Computers are used to speed up the processing of clerical operations to reduce the amount of manual work involved in the school administration process.

Anyway, I agree that Manipur is one of the poor states in India. However, there are at least computer in the schools. These available computers can be utilised properly in school administration without investing more money. If computers are introduced in school administration properly, their work will become faster, accurate and easier than before. Most schools in Manipur do not have the idea about the use of computer in school administration properly.

To start with I can suggest that computers be used for writing application/letter, storing of students' records, teachers' records in a simple way. The name of books, which are available in the school library, can be stored to the computer that can be used as library catalogue. I am not suggesting introduction of digital library or online admission or Internet and Intranet connection to all schools, which might require huge amount of financial investment. I am talking about small steps that can be taken with the available resources.

Most computers in schools do not even have the facility of proper back up in case of a power failure. To add to it, Manipur is experiencing frequent failure of power, which can badly affect a computer. At least, there must be a means for power back up.

It will be nice to see the use these computers in the school administration and not used as a mere decoration or for playing games. It may be reminded that computers cannot do anything automatically on it's own. It is dependent on the creativity of the administrators responsible for the design of systems that can be deployed on the computer.