Many graduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions are frustrated over the arduous processes and delays in obtaining official academic transcripts. IYABO LAWAL reports the ordeals and the need for these institutions to do better, earn good reputation at home and abroad, as well as the goodwill of alumni.

Omolola Olayori, a graduate of the University of Ibadan (UI) class of 2019, had always dreamt of furthering her education abroad to gain more knowledge and expertise. Her outstanding academic record and dedication earned her a scholarship to study computer science at the prestigious James Cook University in Australia.

However, her dreams were shattered due to the bureaucracy and inefficiencies that plague Nigeria’s education system. Despite several attempts to obtain her transcript, she was unsuccessful, and the deadline for submitting the required documents for the scholarship had passed.

As a result, Olayori lost the scholarship opportunity, and her dreams of studying abroad were put on hold. Timothy Olaoye, recounting his ordeal, said: “Just after concluding my MBA programme at Nexford University, I got an email congratulating me for the successful completion, while stating that I have an outstanding document to submit before my degree diploma would be issued. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the document in question was the same electronic transcript I had paid for about two years ago.

“Ideally, this process shouldn’t take more than seven working days. But an electronic transcript paid for in April 2019 wasn’t sent as at March 2021. If this could happen with an electronic transcript, how long would it take to send a hard copy?”

Nigerian universities and polytechnics admit nearly two million students each academic year, producing about 300,000 graduates who continually seek worldwide exposure through admission to foreign institutions; many frequently look for scholarship options to help defray the cost of high-quality education.

However, a broken system that unnecessarily delays the processing of academic transcripts has prevented many, who want to further their education abroad, from the chance to do so.

The transcript is the comprehensive documented record that includes a graduate’s grades. It consists primarily of course units completed, exams passed and credit units earned.

Unfortunately, the delay in getting it from most of the Nigerian universities has cost many graduates the chance of a fully-funded scholarship opportunity to further their studies abroad.

Beyond the time it takes to process a transcript, the document has become a revenue source for the institutions. A graduate of a Nigerian university applying for five different scholarships concurrently, for instance, with the hope of winning at least one, would be made to pay five times to the same university for each transcript application.

This way, the graduates have to keep navigating through a mesh of unending payments or halt aspirations that require transcripts.
“I had to pay a lot of money for the University of Benin to post my transcript to my postgraduate school because they wouldn’t hand it over to me,” Lawrence Solomon, a Master of Arts graduate from Manchester University said.

“If you needed to send to 10 institutions, you will have to pay 10 different times. But Manchester University gave me my transcript for free during graduation,” Solomon stated.

Local transcript processing and delivery rates at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), for instance, were updated to range from N25,000 and N30,000. The first foreign issuance is pegged between 50,500 and N70,000 while subsequent issuance is between N25,000 and N42,500.

At the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), the rates were hiked a few years ago to N20,000 and N35,000 for local and international transcript delivery, respectively, from the previous N1,250 and N2,500, while University of Benin (UNIBEN) charges N20,000 and N50,000 for local and international processing respectively.

The situation is the same at the University of Lagos where the application fee is put at N10,000, while local and international payments are between N20,000 and N35,000 respectively.

At the University of Ibadan, local processing is N25,000 while international is from N35,000. Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, pegs its local processing to N27,500 while international is from N37,500.

But while Nigerian universities are caught in this endless circus, their peers in other African countries have moved on, as students are handed their certificates and transcripts upon graduation.

Weak electronic solution
To ease transfer of transcripts to institutions that require them, the Electronic Transcripts and Documents Exchange in Nigeria (ETX-NG) was created in 2013 by ETX Solutions Nigeria Limited. It works in collaboration with the university managements to accelerate collection of transcript.

This sort of digitisation is what most federal universities claimed to have upgraded to, in recent times, saying only those who graduated before the digital migration were likely to experience minor hitches in accessing their transcripts. Yet, the problems persist.

The nightmarish process of obtaining a transcript from Nigerian universities begins with an application letter, but approval from the university registrar is a needlessly protracted process. It gets complicated with requirement that payment must be in banks resident within the university campus.

The application is then forwarded to exams and records department, which in most institutions, is just a big room that holds more dust than files.

In a single request for transcript, there is a pile of expenditure on transportation, accommodation, monetary compensation for university staff efforts in digging the records, typing and photocopying, among other things.

This, in many cases, robs graduates’ deadline opportunities and financial resources channelled into a vain venture.

Question of custody
The delay and high costs of sending are shifting the debate from why obtaining transcript is excruciatingly difficult to the question of who should be in custody of the transcript.

Although there is no law emphatically giving universities custody over academic transcript or denying graduates of same, the institutions claim they keep the transcripts in their custody and issue directly to requesting institutions to forestall falsification.

The Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, explained that universities retain the custody of transcripts primarily because of the tendency for falsification and alteration of authenticity.

“There are a lot of problems we have with transcript being mutilated when they are given to people. That is why when we send transcript; we send it to where it is supposed to be used. However, we now give student’s copy, which cannot be used for official transaction,” she added.

An official of the University of Ibadan, who spoke on condition of anonymity, justified the payments saying the institution cannot bear the cost of sending the transcripts.

“If you want it 1,000 times, you pay 1,000 times because the services have to be paid for.” OAU spokesperson, Abiodun Olanrewaju, also justified why the document should be in the custody of the institutions. Olanrewaju ascribed the university’s policy of withholding transcript to the culture of corruption in the country.

“If the transcript is in the custody of students, there is every tendency to want to alter grades to suit necessities of where they are going,” he added.

Findings, however showed that most foreign universities are more particular about submitting an authentic transcript, verifiable by the issuing institution, than ‘who’ is submitting the transcript.

Indeed, most foreign universities now request the prospective post-graduate student to scan and upload the transcript alongside other documents, implying that they expect the student to have a handy copy of the transcript.

Causes of delay
A senior lecturer at Bayero University, Kano (BUK), Dr Aminu Hassan, said getting a transcript from any university should not be a problem if there is a high level of good record keeping.

Hassan noted that if universities computerised their results in the last 10 years, issuing transcripts for students who graduated several years ago would not pose as many challenges.

“Currently, when a student applies for a transcript, the department prints the slip and forwards it to the faculty. Subsequently, it undergoes thorough checks at various stages to ensure the accuracy of the records. It is these procedural steps that often lead to delays,” Hassan stated.

To address this problem and expedite the process, Hassan emphasised the need for institutions to adopt comprehensive record-keeping practices.
By implementing a computerised system for results and transcripts, Hassan noted that universities can streamline the process.

Besides, he added that it is essential for departments to maintain accurate records and facilitate smooth coordination between various administrative units.

These measures, according to him, would greatly benefit students and eliminate unnecessary delays. In the same vein, a senior lecturer at the Federal University, Oye Ekiti (FUOYE), Josiah Adeoluwa, lamented that the unnecessary procedures followed by Nigerian universities to process transcripts are not used by foreign institutions.

In foreign universities, Adeoluwa said, every lecturer upload results for students online, and all essential academic documents could be produced through the student’s portal without any physical presence.

“I am aware of universities in Nigeria delaying processing of transcripts, which oftentimes, result in scholarships being forfeited. When I wanted to apply for my masters abroad, I also became a victim. I had to go above and beyond to get my transcript.

“When a student applies through academic affairs, it would first request the applicant’s information from the department he graduated from before seeking permission to print it out and send to the Senate for final approval. This is partly responsible for the delay,” he added.

Intervention by universities
Following public uproar on the pains of graduates in obtaining transcripts from their alma mater, and the consequences of what they forfeited, including scholarships, fellowships, promotion and appointment confirmation, a number of universities have moved to combat what appears to be a serial sore for their products.

One intervention they have adopted to arrest the sluggish response time was to engage online consultants for the process. However, the move appeared to have further compounded the issues as testimonies from those concerned indicated that things are yet to improve.

Apart from missing out from such global opportunities due to the failure of the school and etx.ng, one of the online consultants engaged for the process, to send the transcripts before the specified deadlines, applicants do not get refund for the failed service.

OAU, had, recently, in a statement by its Director of Academic Affairs,
announced an overhaul of the transcript ordering system, and gave the only approved channel for making transcript applications.

It warned that transaction with any individual or agent through any other means aside the approved channel is prohibited.However, some of the university’s alumni disclosed that they were yet to feel the effect of the new transcript system.

Olanrewaju, said the institution has, indeed, overhauled its transcript processing system to make it more effective, but it’s yet to clear the backlog of requests, which accumulated in the old system.

At the University of Ibadan, a senior staff at exams and records unit, confirmed that the school has automated processing of transcripts for students, thereby simplifying the process.

Following series of complaints from alumni members, UNILAG has also launched a 24-hour transcript processing platform, which would
facilitate the transmission of student’s copies of the electronic transcripts within 24 hours while applications can be made through the students’ portal.

As institutions struggle to find more seamless ways of processing transcripts, the affected applicants are wondering why they have to suffer for others’ inefficiency, even as golden opportunities continue to be lost, knowing fully well that overhauling the system in Nigeria is not always a stroll in the park.