Regardless of the tedious means of acquiring a transcript from Nigerian universities, the ivory towers have continued to rake in billions from the mass of Nigerian graduates in search of important paperwork for brand spanking new alternatives.
Findings by The Guardian confirmed that largely between 2018 and 2022, 12 universities earned a cumulative sum of N12.84 billion, charging graduates who need a copy of their transcript between N35,000 and N70,000.
The delay and excessive prices of sending transcripts are shifting the controversy from why acquiring a transcript is excruciatingly troublesome to who ought to have custody of it. Though no legislation emphatically offers universities custody over educational transcripts or denies graduates of the identical, the establishments declare they preserve the transcripts of their custody and difficulty them immediately on request from establishments to forestall falsification.
Findings, nonetheless, confirmed that almost all overseas universities are extra specific about submitting an genuine transcript, verifiable by the issuing establishment than ‘who’ is submitting the transcript.
Certainly, most overseas universities now require potential postgraduate college students to scan and add the transcript alongside different paperwork, implying that they anticipate the coed to have a helpful copy.
Amidst a rising outcry over the arduous means of acquiring transcripts from their alma mater, graduates are discovering themselves at a loss. The implications of this battle are extreme, with many forfeiting scholarships, fellowships, promotions, and even appointment confirmations.
As establishments grapple with the problem of streamlining transcript processing and graduates bear the brunt of a turgid and tepid educational processing system, universities could also be quietly doing brisk enterprise.
The nightmarish means of acquiring a transcript from Nigerian universities begins with an utility letter, however approval from the college registrar is a needlessly protracted course of. It will get difficult with the requirement that cost have to be in banks resident throughout the college campus.
The appliance is then forwarded to the exams and information division, which, in most establishments, is only a huge room with extra mud than recordsdata. A single request for a transcript includes a big expenditure on transportation, lodging, and financial compensation for college employees efforts in digging the information, typing, and photocopying, amongst different issues. In lots of instances, this robs graduates of deadline alternatives and monetary assets channelled right into a useless enterprise.
An evaluation of information of the 12 public universities, analyzing their 5 educational classes, variety of graduates and the transcript payment of every establishment, confirmed that over 5 years, between 60 and 70 per cent of the graduates utilized for a transcript, at the very least as soon as, from these establishments. The alma maters, subsequently, made the estimated sum sufficient to automate the method for seamless providers.
The establishments are: Ahmadu Bello College (ABU), Zaria, recording 81,181 graduates over the past 5 years; College of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), 59,259; Niger Delta College (NDU), 39,457; College of Ibadan (UI), 35,272; College of Lagos (UNILAG), 68,619; Nationwide Open College of Nigeria (NOUN), 126,579; College of Ilorin (UNILORIN), 57,282; Federal College of Expertise, Owerri (FUTO), 10,009; Nnamdi Azikiwe College (NAU), Awka, 32,175; College of Calabar (UNICAL), 42,120; College of Benin (UNIBEN), 52,855, and Obafemi Awolowo College (OAU), 34,874.
Based mostly on the common, a breakdown of the quantity raked in by the 12 establishments confirmed that ABU with 48,708 candidates made N2.43 billion on the charge of N50,000 per transcript request; UNN with 35,555 made N1.24 billion on the charge of N35,000 per utility; NDU with 25,647 made N1.92 billion from a mean of N75,000 per transcript request; UI fees a mean of N35,000, and by 21,163 candidates to made N740.70 million; UNILAG with 34,309 made N1.2 billion from N35,000 per transcript request; and NOUN with 75,947 raked in N1.89 billion from N25,000 charged on every transcript.
UNILORIN with 34,369 candidates generated N1.37 billion, charging N40,000 per transcript; FUTO with 10,009 candidates raked in N700.63 million from charging N40,000 on every request; NAU with 19,305 made N965.25 million from N50,000 on each request; UNICAL with 25,272 additionally generated N1.2 billion from N50,000 per applicant; UNIBEN with 31,713 made N1.5 billion, additionally on N50,000 on each applicant; whereas OAU with 20,924 candidates generated N784.65 million, charging N37,000 every.
This potential income streaming from transcript charges may assist bolster the meagre monetary allocations to federal universities.
Within the 2024 appropriation, the N2.18 trillion budgeted for the training sector is N390 billion greater than 2023’s N1.79 trillion, with N1.23 trillion allotted to the Federal Ministry of Schooling and its companies, N700 billion to the Tertiary Schooling Belief Fund (TETFund) and N251.47 billion to the Common Primary Schooling Fee (UBEC).
Within the funds, UNN obtained the lion’s share of N36.6 billion, adopted by UNICAL with N29.5 billion and ABU with N29.2 billion, together with NAU, N26.3 billion; UNIBEN: N24.2 billion; UI, N23.4 billion; College of Maiduguri, N22.3 billion; UNIPort: N19.6 billion; and UNILAG: N19.4 billion.
Others are OAU, N17.1 billion; BUK, N17 billion; Federal College of Expertise, Owerri (FUTO) N16.8 billion; UNIJOS, N16.2 billion; UNIUYO N15.6 billion; and NOUN, N14.6 billion.
Past the time it takes to course of a transcript, the doc has grow to be an establishment’s income supply.
A graduate of a Nigerian college making use of for 5 totally different scholarships concurrently, for example, with the hope of successful at the very least one, can be made to pay 5 instances to the identical college for every transcript utility.
This manner, graduates must preserve navigating an internet of endless funds or halt aspirations that require transcripts.
As an example, native transcript processing and supply charges at FUTO had been up to date to vary from N25,000 to N30,000. The primary overseas issuance is pegged between N50,000 and N70,000, whereas subsequent issuance is between N25,000 and N42,500.
At UNN, the charges had been hiked a number of years in the past to N20,000 and N35,000 for native and worldwide transcript supply, respectively, from the earlier N1,250 and N2,500.
UNIBEN fees N20,000 and N50,000 for native and worldwide processing, respectively. The scenario just isn’t totally different at UNILAG: the appliance payment is N10,000, whereas native and worldwide funds are between N20,000 and N35,000, respectively.
At UI, native processing is N25,000, whereas worldwide is N35,000. OAU pegs its native processing to N27,500, whereas worldwide is from N37,500.
ABU fees N25,000 for native utilization, whereas worldwide is N50,000; NDU native is N30,000, whereas outdoors Nigeria is N75,000. NOUN fees 25,000; FUOYE fees N25,000 for native and N50,000 for overseas; FUT Minna is N25,000 inside Nigeria, N35,000 inside Africa and N50,000 for different continents.
UNILORIN is between N25,000 and N40,000; Federal College, Gashua, transcript processing is N25,000 inside Nigeria, whereas worldwide processing ranges from N40,000.
UNIUYO: ₦30,000; UDUS fees ₦25,000 for native and N40,000 for worldwide transcripts. Federal College, Otuoke, fees between N25,000 and N45,000 relying on location, NAU: N35,000 to N50,000; UNIPORT: N35,000 to N55,000; UNICAL: 30,000 to N50,000; FUPRE fees between N30,000 and N45,000, whereas at Alex Ekwueme College, Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi: Inner transcript is N30,000 whereas worldwide is N50,000
Based on the Nationwide Universities Fee (NUC), there are 62 federal universities, 63 state universities and 148 personal universities. If 500 college students graduate yearly from state universities and pay to acquire a transcript on the charge of N10,000, the colleges will make N315,000,000. In 62 federal universities, N310,000,000 will probably be generated yearly) and N740,000,000 by 148 personal universities. The three teams of universities (273 establishments; 125 state-owned and 148 privately-owned) may earn a complete of N1,365,000,000 in a single 12 months from charging graduates to pay for transcripts.
Regardless of the potential fixed stream of income that educational transcripts supply, Nigerian universities and polytechnics admit practically two million college students every educational 12 months, producing about 300,000 graduates who regularly search worldwide publicity by means of admission to overseas establishments; many often search for scholarship choices to assist defray the price of high-quality training.
Nevertheless, a damaged system that unnecessarily delays the processing of educational transcripts has prevented many who wish to additional their training overseas from the prospect to take action.
On the finish of every semester in establishments of upper studying, college students write examinations on the programs they’ve registered for, and their grades are computed.
Based on a Nigerian scholar, Victoria Oyekunle, in some universities, the scores and grades are entered right into a outcomes sheet, and the cumulative grade level common (CGPA) is calculated and recorded manually.
She famous that these information are stored in paper recordsdata, fastidiously organized into folders and saved on cabinets.
“Data know-how has revolutionised main facets of our financial system, and tedious duties that after took hours or days can now be accomplished in minutes or seconds with the introduction of computerised techniques,” Oyekunle mentioned.
She cited the coed transcript technology system as a primary instance of how data know-how has remodeled educational record-keeping.
After commencement, college students are supplied with a transcript that particulars their educational information, together with programs taken, grades obtained, and levels conferred. The handbook method to transcript technology, nonetheless, has a number of drawbacks.
Oyekunle additionally talked about that it’s comparatively straightforward for an unauthorised social gathering to tamper with the transcripts, and detecting such modifications will be difficult. Moreover, the method will be time-consuming and labour-intensive, requiring ample manpower to generate, confirm, and distribute the transcripts, particularly when college students switch between establishments.
To deal with these points, Dr Lanre Afolabi, an training advisor, instructed streaming trendy know-how and simplifying the computation of scholars’ educational outcomes.
By automating the method, Afolabi famous that entry to the outcomes turns into quicker and the general course of extra environment friendly.
Based on him, a reliable system with an efficient and simple utility and procurement course of for educational transcripts and sturdy strategies for authenticating and verifying transcript integrity can considerably enhance scholar information administration.
However whereas Nigerian universities are caught on this countless circus, their friends in different African nations have moved on, as college students are handed their certificates and transcripts upon commencement.
To ease the switch of transcripts to establishments that require them, some corporations have created digital transcripts and doc alternate options that work in collaboration with college administration to speed up transcript assortment.
Most federal universities claimed to have upgraded to this form of digitisation in latest instances, saying solely those that graduated earlier than the digital migration had been prone to expertise minor hitches in accessing their transcripts. But, the issues persist.
