Why Most OAU Transcripts Don’t Get Sent Ever or Get Sent But Several Months After Applying
To
save your time (in case you wouldn’t need this write-up), let me list out the
aspects of OAU transcript problems I want to discuss here so you know if this
write-up would be of help to you in any way or not.
1.
I will talk about why people who graduated a long time ago may never get their
transcripts or get it but almost a year or after a year that they applied for
it; long time ago being 2005 backwards.
2.
I will talk about why people who graduated from any department in Health
Sciences and Faculty of Pharmacy in OAU may never get their transcript if they
make the application online and keep waiting without doing any physical thing
on it.
3.
I will talk about why people who transferred between departments, people who
took a leave of absence, people who had extra year/semester, and people who didn’t
graduate may never get their transcripts from OAU.
4.
If you have applied for your transcript for close to one year but the tracker
on your dashboard is still stuck at “Payment Received”, I will talk about what your
case could be too.
5.
I will discuss the workable solution to 1, 2, 3, and 4 above.
This
write-up may however be an eye opener to you if your case is not listed among
1, 2, 3 and 4 above but you graduated from other schools like OAU but your
transcript application is not showing any sign someone is doing something on it
to get it delivered.
At
Pathfinders Edu Consultancy (PEC), the experiences we have garnered from
processing transcripts for people in OAU, UI, UNILAG, AAU, AAUA, UNIBEN,
POLYIBADAN and the likes of these schools from 2017 till now have made us
realize there are some transcript jobs that are naturally problematic, and
their problems, even if solvable at all, would take forever to solve than most
clients can be patient for and also cost too much money usually than the what's collected from clients to do a job like this for them. Also, we have learned
that owners of these problematic jobs have no idea at all their own transcript case
is different, so they keep saying things like: “but my friends are getting
their own transcripts naw”, and stuff like that that would make you feel like
your efforts to get the problem on their job solved is not understood at all. So
for these reasons, we have been wise enough to divide transcript jobs into two:
CLASS A and CLASS B. If your case falls on any of 1, 2, 3 and 4 above, you fall
on our CLASS B, we take these jobs but only under rigorous and mutual understanding on the bill and the time of delivery. Below is detailed discussion on numbers 1, 2, 3 and
4 cases listed above (our CLASS B jobs).
1.
If you graduated from OAU anytime from
2005 backwards, just remove the idea of “I need my transcript urgently” from
your mind, it’s never coming anytime soon if it’s coming at all. The electronic database was introduced in the 2005/2006 session, this means if you graduated 2005 backwards your results are totally on papers at your department. In fact, if you graduated in the 90’s, 80’s and 70’s, it's not enough that your results are only on papers at your department, there are also the possibilties that some sheets carrying your results are lost during movemements or maintenance of office, damaged by rodents or room temperature; transcript production is impossible if your results can’t be found, can't be found compeletely or
no one is even trying to look for them. You now get why we need to negotiate with you rigorously if we are taking this job right?
2.
If you graduated from any department in Health Sciences in OAU or Pharmacy, your
case is close to number 1 above, only that you still have more hope of getting
your transcript, it may only take years if no one is running the errands for
you. Reason for this is because Health Sciences and Pharmacy for some reasons don’t
deliver their individual results to the Exams and Records they just send the
number of graduating students and what they are graduating with (this is not a
fact, but if it’s wrong the fact cannot be too far away from it). Health
Sciences and Pharmacy for some reasons hold on to their own results, and they
try to make sure every student in their departments get a piece of their
results signed by their HOD before graduating, so they can use it when they
need to process their transcripts. So for this, when you graduate and apply for
your transcript online for the school’s Transcript Department to produce, they
have no results they would use to produce a transcript for you. Normally,
someone from the Transcript Department was supposed to visit your
Faculty/College and go process your results from there and get them to the
Transcripts Department for the production of your transcript to begin proper,
but no OAU staff has that time for such visit. So even if someone is going to
get up and go do this for you at your Faculty/College, just know it wouldn’t be
that fast, this is why it may take forever before your transcript is delivered if it's going to be delivered at all.
3.
If you transferred between departments, forget it, your results can’t be
generated on the new database; someone would have to go to your department to
collate your results from papers, and no OAU staff wants to do this. So stop
wondering why you have applied for your transcript since 19BC but it’s still at
“Payment Received”. If you took a Leave of Absence, even if your results are
found and collated and your transcripts produced, it would still get stuck at
the level of approval because the office to approve it would want to see the
letter that approved the Leave of Absence you took, and most student don’t remember
to take this letter to the Exams and Records for them to keep it in their file after
they have gotten the approval for the leave, they just give it to their
department (that would not keep it) or hold on to it themselves and lose it. If
you had extra year/semester, you most probably failed multiple courses while
you’re in school, so your results are scattered everywhere around different
sessions that’s not yours normally; OAU staff don’t have the time to fetch for scattered results like that. If you didn’t complete your programme before
leaving OAU, most OAU staff have no idea even 100 Level students have the right
to get their transcripts if they need it, they mostly believe only people who
have graduated can get a transcript. So if you have already applied for your
transcript online just assume someone saw your application and abandoned it because
you didn’t graduate and they don’t know you still have the right to your
transcripts on the levels you completed.
4.
If you have applied for your transcripts online, it’s been close to one year
since you applied and the tracker is still stuck at “Payment Received”, 99.99%
are the chances your results are not on the database and no staff is trying to
go help you get them from papers at your department. A transcript cannot be
produced for you lest this is done!
Problems
have been discussed, you now have a better understanding why your transcript is
taking forever or may never be delivered, but what are the ways out? There are
not many ways out, but the one I know is a promising one if you could find
people that would be on ground to do some office-to-office tipping and begging
for your transcript to be produced, and this process would cost that person
time, money, physical and mental stress (so mind what you say to them when
things aren’t going as you assume it should). Like I said, we take jobs like this only when the owner agrees to be extremely patient with the process, and they are willing to pay the high price. But my advice to you if you have one or more
case among the numbers 1 to 4 problems discussed, just find somebody who is
willing to climb mountains and swim oceans for you or go on ground yourself, lest you would wait for OAU
staff forever or in vain. When you find someone to help you or you are ready to do this yourself, here are the
things would be done in stages.
Stages to
Solving OAU’s Transcript Problems
Stage
1: Online application would be made on tps.oauife.edu.ng; amount to pay for
this application would vary depending on the destination of the transcript and
the mode of delivery. For an electronic or paper transcript to be delivered to
the owner in Nigeria (student copy), the amount to pay online is approximately
#15,500 (bank charges added). Electronic transcript to be delivered abroad is
approximately #23,500, while paper transcript going abroad is approximately #30,500.
Stage
2: The application would be printed out and used to collect a Request for
Results (RFR) from the Transcript Department; this RFR would be drafted by the
officer in charge of your faculty and it must be signed by the Principal
Assistant Registrar (PAR) of Transcript Department. If you transferred between
departments, you are collecting a RFR for every department you went to. If you
graduated from any department in College of Health Sciences, Medicine and
Surgery for instance, you are collecting a RFR for as many departments as Basic
Med., Community Health, Mental Health, Med. and Surg.
Stage
3: The RFR would be taken to the department(s) for them to collate your results
and have the document signed by the HOD(s) (most departments collect a levee
for this, averagely #3,000 per department you submit the RFR to). Normally the
HOD is the person to be in charge of this, but no HOD has the time to start
digging for results up and down, so they assign this work to a junior staff who
would also never want to do it; one must be willing to tip this person to
charge them to work (budget #3,000 to #5,000 or a lot of begging for this).
Stage 4: When the results are collated and the document signed by the HOD, take it to the Transcript Department for proper transcript production to begin. Offices and persons that would be involved after here are: Officer in charge of your Faculty (to keep moving the file from one office to another), typist (to type the transcript), the proofreader (who proofreads transcripts), the PAR (who would approve the transcript), and the dispatch officer (who sends the transcript). Budget a lot of tipping and begging for most of these offices and persons. This stage looks like one stage but no it's not, and none of these stages is as simple as my explanation make it look.
