Nyok|18 June 2018
A graduating student of the University of Calabar (UNICAL), Calabar, Mr Ogar Akinu Monday, recently launched an attack at the management of the tertiary institution over the clearance process for her final year students NegroidHaven has garnered.
Monday who said that there is a queuing mentality in UNICAL, observed that the clearance method is aimed at deliberately frustrating students being cumbersome. He’s suggested the automation of the entire process to harp on seamless operation.
Hear him, ‘Since writing my final papers I had made a personal vow to keep my criticism of my alma mater private even as I continuously drum my angst against the country’s crumbling public tertiary educational system, but I don’t think that peace can hold now, or maybe this shouldn’t be considered a criticism but an observation of what I think is due for urgent change.
‘Whoever advised the school management on its current final year clearance method must be a fan of Hitler’s concentration camp and a student under the tutelage of the baggy wearing North-Korean leader. Its sole aim is to frustrate you and push you into raining curses on multiple languages on the school.
‘Let me tell you something, I woke up today by 4:20 AM and started preparing to go to school just because clearance is as difficult as passing through the proverbial needles eye. I got to the school Bursary unit some few minutes after 5 (I had to trek from where I stay to school) and they were already 47 persons before me.
‘When the first staff of the Bursary unit opened the gate of the unit by 8AM over 150 persons wanted to do clearance. A lady came grabbed the list with the written names and announced that only 50 persons will be attended to, meaning the rest would have to comeback a week later. (This was despite a 12 noon deadline for upload of NYSC PCM’s with the clearance a requirement for making the list).
‘The University of Calabar graduates at least 5000 students yearly and these behemoth numbers must see the bursar each by each for final stamping of their clearance slip. To get the slip the Bursar appends his signature to, you must have cleared from your faculty and this too involves checking your school fee receipt, and then the newly introduced database clearance which seems like the repetition of what happens in the bursary unit.
‘For a university with a very functional ICT unit and a vibrant department of computer science, a school that I assume is training me for the future and equips me to handle challenges, UNICAL seems lost on how to make the clearance process easy and seamless for students.
‘There is a queuing mentality in UNICAL and it somehow encourages staff exploitation of helpless students. The school with 5 or less lines of code can automate the school fee verification process for students putting to end the endless photocopy and “stand here, stand there” that the current system is about.’
‘By the way, after staying at the Bursary unit for over 8 hours I couldn’t do the clearance. The guy who was suppose to verify my receipt went to “pee” and when I didn’t see him after an hour I had to leave’, Monday concluded.
BLOGGERTORIAL
It’s quite unfortunate that Monday couldn’t successfully undergo the final clearance —I could imagine his frustration.
Beyond automating the school fees payment system, final clearance should be prioritised.
Nyok
Is the Blogger-in-Chief, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of NegroidHaven
