Delayed LASU Transcripts: The Causes and The Ways Out
Lagos
State University (LASU) transcript process just has to be one of the top five
slowest state-owned universities’ transcript processes; it has always been so, and
staff and applicants have gotten used to the dysfunctional system of processing
transcripts that no one is complaining anymore like they used to. I guess when
one has complained about a problem so much and no solution, they just adapt to
the problem, find their own personal solution to their own part of the problem,
or suffer in silence what it causes them—the Nigerian ways. But are these the right
way? There are schools elsewhere around the world that are able to deliver your
transcript electronically within few hours you submitted an application for
such delivery, and if there is any state university or any university at all in
Nigeria that has gotten to that level, it should be LASU… Lagos is still the
centre of excellence, no?
The
problem with applying for your LASU transcript and never having it delivered or
having it delivered but way later than you need it looked like it was going to
get solved when they introduced the online application system; the online
portal is so functional one would think that’s the end of the problem with the transcript
process, but no, the problem is not the means of application and payment, it is
the process of gathering results and processing them into transcripts. So, the online
application portal does not address the major problem, it only solved the
problem of people having to come down to school to apply for their transcripts;
now, anyone can apply for their transcript anywhere. The problems of delayed
delivery and no delivery however continue to exist.
An
alumnus of the school can apply for their transcript and make the payment for
it online, but if they don’t have extra legs and hands on ground helping them
fetch their file, results, pushing everything to the Transcript Unit,
monitoring the progress of the transcript production and approval, and bribing
this person and that person within all of these, the alumnus may just wait forever
on the delivery of the transcript, and now that transcript is the most
important academic document for an alumnus trying to travel abroad, trying to
further their education, or trying to get a standard job, many people have lost
great life opportunities because of this.
The
permanent solution to delayed transcript delivery and undelivered transcripts—which
UNIBEN has done and it works—is to set-up a team (of at least ten members) to
upload from papers to an electronic database all academic results one by one,
from the very first results the school published to the very last one. This may
take up to one year or more if each member of the 10-man team uploads ten
people’s results per working day (making it 100 alumni’s results uploaded per
working day, and 700 per working week), but the completion of this project
would solve over 70% of the problems with the transcript processes. Another 20%
of the problem would be solved if student copy transcripts are made available
online for alumni to download themselves immediately after applying and paying
online—this would reduce the loads of transcript staff of the Transcript Unit
would have to work on, the focus would be on official transcripts now, thereby
enhancing delivery speed.
The
remaining 10% of the problem would be human errors in the process, uploading of
subsequent results after the first back so we don’t have any more results that
are only on papers, power supply, communication with applicants and receivers
of transcripts. A land phone which will ring every time if called within
working times and days, and a supportive staff would actually answer it every
time it rings, this would solve a good part of these problems or at least give
applicants insight into whether their application is getting the good attention
or not. But since the school has the Nigerian excuses for functioning backwards
in the processing of transcripts, it’s a show we are not ready to stop the
culture of applicants needing to use a third-party in processing their
transcripts if they are going to receive it early or ever. We cannot complain too
much though, the existence of institutional and organizational failures like
these is why solution-based brands like us survive. It’s disturbing, but it’s the
Nigerian way.
People who read this also have interest in reading these:
Where is Oluwole, the Headquarters of Forged and Fake Documents?
Solutions to Date of Birth Discrepancies on Your Transcript
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