Some graduates of the University of Lagos (UNILAG)’s geoscience master’s programme told FIJ they had waited for 10 years to obtain their certificates and transcripts.
The department’s 2013 graduating class told FIJ they had been writing their head of department and the school of post-graduate studies (SPGS) to ask about the status of their certificates but were not getting responses.
Bolatito Abegunde (not real name), one of the affected graduates, in a telephone conversation with FIJ on Wednesday, said she and others in her shoes had grown tired of responses from the school’s management.
FIJ had reported how many from the department were denied opportunities to pursue doctorate programmes abroad.
At the time, Alabi Soneye, the dean of SPGS, told FIJ that the issue would be resolved.
Contained in an email to Mary Odukoya, the head of the department of geosciences; Adeogun and the sub-dean of the SPGS, was an instruction for them to look into the matter.
The email read in part, “The candidates are among a few that their departments have not submitted their results properly online for the certificate office to produce their certificates even after we set up a special committee to facilitate that,” Soneye’s mail reads in part.
“I thought Geoscience had resolved the cases and that the certificate office had treated them accordingly.”
Soneye told FIJ he was aware of the matter, and that prior to his assumption of office as dean, the university attempted to move from paper records to digital records.
This move, according to the dean, saw some of the students ending up with more course units than was required, and the department experiencing difficulties in processing certificates.
Lamenting the delay, Abegunde said, “I went to collect my transcript to apply for an international PhD scholarship, but the school of Post Graduate Studies (SPGS) directed me to my department.
“At the department, I learnt that some people had got their results, while some others had not got theirs. For us who had not gotten our results, they said they had not uploaded the results. Now, both the department and the SPGS have continued to keep us in the dark on when our transcripts would be out.”
Abegunde said she and others had resolved to visit the school again on Monday as no one was responding to them.
Soneye told FIJ he had been replying emails and providing answers. He, however, said the aggrieved graduates could come forward and get attended to.
-FIJNG
