STUDENT CENTERED SCHOOL TIMETABLING

This paper reports on the formulation of a secondary school timetablin g problem as a non-linear goal program, where students freely choose t heir courses of study from a complete list of subjects rather than the usual restricted sets of subjects. The problem as formulated is too l arge to solve by traditional optimisation methods, so it is broken dow n into several stages for solution by heuristics to give good timetabl ing schedules which are at least as good as those built by manual meth ods. Timetable construction using a desktop computer is reduced from w eeks to hours, giving schools the opportunity to construct timetables closer to the time when student choices and teaching staff are more se ttled.