m-axim-e/Mlinzi

Android school management app for under-resourced primary schools. # MLINZI – SCHOOL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ## Introduction This capstone project presents the design, development, and implementation of **Mlinzi**, a mobile-based School Management System developed for under-resourced primary schools in Nairobi's informal settlements. The project was undertaken as part of the **SWE 3090AX Software Engineering Capstone Project** at the **United States International University – Africa (USIU-Africa)**. The project focuses on applying modern software engineering principles to address the challenges associated with manual school administration. Many low-resource schools continue to rely on paper-based systems for recording attendance, tracking academic performance, managing school fees, maintaining student records, and communicating with parents. These manual processes are often inefficient, time-consuming, prone to errors, and vulnerable to data loss. Mlinzi was developed to provide a secure, affordable, and user-friendly Android application that digitizes these administrative processes using cloud-based technologies. Built using **Java**, the **MVVM architectural pattern**, and **Firebase services**, the application enables administrators, teachers, and parents to access role-specific features through a single mobile platform. Firebase Authentication provides secure user access, Cloud Firestore stores school records in real time, Firebase Cloud Storage manages uploaded documents such as timetables, and Firebase Cloud Messaging supports scalable communication capabilities. The system demonstrates the practical application of software engineering concepts including requirements analysis, user interface design, database design, object-oriented programming, mobile application development, cloud integration, software testing, version control using Git and GitHub, and secure deployment practices. Throughout development, Agile principles were adopted to incrementally deliver functional modules while maintaining source code through distributed …