After waiting for more than one year after completing their studies, students of a department in a state university had to return to their school recently to protest the delay in releasing their results.
Due to the delay, the affected students had missed the opportunity of proceeding for the compulsory National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) like their colleagues in other institutions.
It took the protest for the school authorities to summon the head of department to find out what caused the delay and give a directive given to expedite the compilation for approval by the Senate of the institution.
If the students had not protested, they would have continued to wait endlessly and not be sure when they will go for the national service. Already some of the students are no longer eligible to serve having clocked the 30 years age limit. Some, especially female, have opted for marriage due to unplanned pregnancy attributed to idleness.
Without the NYSC certificate, the students cannot seek employment and even those who have become overage, need exemption certificate after the release of the result.
The issue of the delay of release of results has unfortunately become common in many institutions. Instead of promptly releasing results of examinations, lecturers take more than enough time to submit their marks and careless about the implication of the delay for the students.
Apart from delay, there are also cases of shoddiness in compiling results which deny students of the marks they actually scored or forced them to retake examinations they have passed.
I am aware of the case of a final student of another institution who scored A in a course, saw the score in the manual compilation, but was told that he did not register for the course, though he did.
The problem was that the lecturer did not input the scores in the school portal, but the poor boy had to get his parents to pay another fee for a semester to retake an examination he earlier scored high marks. Due to the mix up, he will also not be mobilised for NYSC along with his mates.
If the parents of the student, having managed to pay his fees while three-year course lasted, are unable to pay the extra semester fee, his education would have been derailed due to a lecturer who was not diligent with his assignment.
It is important for lecturers and authorities to ensure that results which determines the future of the students are given the attention it deserves. Students don’t have to wait and resort to protest for results of their examinations.
In the case of the students of the state university, the school authorities should have known that some departments have not submitted their results for consideration. If other departments can submit earlier to enable their students be enrolled for the youth service, no department should be allowed to truncate the career of others. Lecturers who are responsible for the delay should be penalised to serve as a deterrent to others.
If results are released promptly, there will be enough time for sorting out whatever compilation error could occur which lecturers usually refuse to take responsibility for.
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