Design of a Biometric Attendance Management System for ESUT Administrative Staff

Manual attendance recording in Nigerian universities is susceptible to proxy signing, data loss, and delayed reporting, creating accountability gaps in staff management. This study designs and evaluates a biometric attendance management system for administrative staff at Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT). The system employs fingerprint recognition technology integrated with a relational database and an automated reporting module. The development approach combined hardware configuration of a ZFM-60 optical fingerprint sensor with backend development using Python and SQLite, and a desktop GUI built with Tkinter. System design followed a structured systems development methodology, including requirements analysis, prototyping, and iterative testing. Fifty administrative staff members participated in the enrollment and evaluation phase. Results show that the system achieved a fingerprint recognition accuracy of 97.4 percent under normal operating conditions and generated daily attendance reports automatically with zero manual input. Time savings of approximately 45 minutes per day were recorded compared to manual methods. Staff acceptance was high, with 88 percent reporting ease of use. The study concludes that biometric systems significantly enhance transparency and efficiency in university staff management. Recommendations include scaling the solution to academic staff and integrating payroll processing functionalities.