Permanent
Solutions to Transcript Issues in Nigerian Schools
In
Nigeria today, when we talk about on-time and stress-free transcript production
services, we can vouch for only two or three schools (UNILORIN and FUTA being
two of them). Please when I talk about on-time and stress-free I’m not judging
that with the fast and easy experience that those two people in a group of twenty
people have and they use that to argue that transcript production in their
schools is not as terrible as they say it is, I’m talking about the experiences
of the eighteen of the twenty people—this is the real metric for measuring the efficiency
and effectiveness of the transcript services of any school, not the experience
of the fewest people possible. There are schools that are popularly commended
for their good transcript services, so we all know they are getting this thing
right (according to public comments, FUTA, UNILORIN and COVENANT deliver
between one day to two weeks, so they fall on this group). There are schools that
are just somewhere in between being terrible and being among the schools that
are doing well (according to public comments, UNILAG, FUNAAB, UNIBEN, NOUN;
they deliver between two weeks and never, so they fall on this group). There
are also schools that are just popularly terrible (according to public
comments, LASU, UI, OAU; they deliver between a couple of months and never, so
they fall on this group). The worst part of it is that these terrible-doing
schools also lack proper communication; if as an alumnus I requested for my
transcript and for one problem or the other the delivery of my transcript would
be delayed or would never happen, the department working on it should be able to
communicate with me and let me know what the problem is, but unfortunately, I
am just likely to sit somewhere thinking my transcript production is ongoing
and it would be delivered sooner or later even when no one is doing anything on
it. This right here is what worsens the experience.
I
know every of these schools have their reasons for their terrible transcript
production services and they will always try to justify the failure with inadequate
resources and so on, they would be right, but we also know there is none of the
problems affecting transcript production in Nigeria that cannot be improvised
on or improved upon and get the best results from. From experiences garnered
from working on transcripts at different schools, I know what most of the
problems are, and here are the things I think the schools can do to grow faster
towards same-day delivery of transcripts:
Problem
1: Record is the
major reason why transcript delivery cannot be fast, it’s also the reason why
some people will never be able to get their transcripts produced if they don’t apply
some extreme pressure. Our schools have been paper-based for decades, even when
the rest of the world is already done moving from paper to electronic we are
still encouraging paper records. We are pretending to be digital but we are
still very much paper-based in all of our processes, only our banking sector is,
to a large extent, digital; especially with the evolution of FinTechs we have
now, the banks are compelled towards the race to get more digital. In the next
ten years Nigerians would not have to enter a banking facility anymore,
everything would be doable online. Apart from the banking sector, other sectors
are just pretending to be digital, they are still very much paper. The immigration
offices claim they have gone digital in processing passports but after paying
online you would still need to go fill the forms you filled online at their
office, and you would need to carry your files from here to there and also make
several photocopies. In fact the staff and agents at their offices make you
realize you should not apply online. The education sector is the worst, the
things you do online you would still have to go to school to do them on papers;
this tarnishes the major idea behind going digital. Discussing this as the
major problem behind delayed transcript production, our schools still have most
of their results on papers (only), and you will have to find these papers
before a transcript can be produced.
Solution
to Problem 1:
Let every school divide their transcript departments into five units:
Unit
1: would take
every transcript request and arrange them into three groups:
Group One: requests from alumni
who recently graduated and their results can be easily found on the electronic
database;
Group Two: requests from alumni
who graduated a while ago, their results are not on the electronic database but
can be easily found on papers;
Group Three: requests from alumni
who graduated decades ago, their records are only on papers, and finding their
records would be difficult. This group should also include requests from alumni
with other cases that can make producing transcript for them impossible.
Transcript requests from each of
the three groups can only queue behind requests from the same group, so the
general queue system must be abolished for the group queue system.
Unit
2: would be in
charge of uploading every record on papers to an electronic storage system;
this would be their only job until there is nothing that’s on paper that’s not
also on multiple electronic databases that can be accessed for transcript
production. After all old records on papers are now on electronic storage, this
unit may remain with this function so no future records are limited to being on
papers.
Unit
3: would be in
charge of the transcript requests that fall into Group One. For this group, same-day
delivery and same-week delivery would be possible. They would be the group that
talk good about their school’s transcript production system because they have
the good experience when they request for their transcripts. While the overhauling
of the system is being done underground, the alumni with this experience would
be out there repairing the image of their school’s transcript department.
Unit
4: would be in
charge of the transcript requests that fall into Group Two. They would take requests
having the features of this group and go access the electronic database first
if Unit 2 has uploaded the records needed for it to the database, if yes they would
produce the transcript from the database, if no they would go towards the paper
records immediately. This cycle and unit would remain till Unit 2 is done
uploading all old records on papers to the electronic storages in use.
Unit
5: would be in
charge of the transcript requests that fall into Group Three. Their job is to dig
the records of these alumni that have graduated decades ago and produce their
transcripts and to solve problems that could delay jobs from units 3 and 4.
Problem
2: Problem of
inadequate resources. The schools always argue that short-staffing, inadequate
funding and so on are the reasons why they can’t execute the plans they have to
better their transcript production services, and this is obvious when you go to
the transcript department of any school.
Solution
to Problem 2: To
implement even the Solution to Problem 1above to its best, more resources would
be needed than the transcript departments have now, we know this. We also know
that the transcript departments are currently one of the highest
revenue-generating departments in our schools, so it means the department
should be able to fund itself if resources were properly allocated. But as we
are not likely to get the proper resource-allocation, then we can improvise
strategically unlike the unproductive “improvising” everyone claims they have
been doing. Units 1 to 5 described above can effectively be run by 20 people in
total; each unit must have the administrator/authority—who approves transcripts
produced or records uploaded online, and they can also be the one who
communicates with clients for inquiries, updates and so on. At least one person
is needed for typing/downloading of transcripts/results. One or two persons
running errands to solve problems of the cases falling on Groups Two and Three.
This would be human resources purposely and well allocated, and the outcome
would be better than what we have now.
Problem
3: Our schools
all lack the will to communicate with their alumni, especially when it comes to
transcript requests and production you don’t hear anything from your school
again just after you have made the payment for the request. The schools let you
believe since you have paid the production of your transcript is ongoing—this
is mostly a lie and it’s dangerous to just leave everything and start expecting
the delivery of your transcript.
Workable
Solution to Problem 3:
Units Three, Four and Five described above as part of the transcript department
should have someone who communicates with the clients to update them on the
progress of their transcript and to get needed information from them when
necessary. By doing this, not only have the transcript departments settled a
lot of fears their client may have, but they also help the vulnerable ones to
not fall into the hands of scammers. Communicating with an alumnus who is
waiting for the delivery of their transcript can ease so much tension and solve
a lot of problems.
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