Awka – Students of Nnamdi Azikiwe Unversity, Awka have threatened to stage a protest on Monday, 1st February, 2021, in a bid to stop the school management from conducting exams scheduled for the first week of this month.
TNC correspondent who monitored the resumption of schools, said the students are complaining about the short notice they were given to prepare for exams, especially due to the directive earlier given to schools by the Federal government that school hostels should be locked till the 25th of January.
According to some of the students, they were denied access to the hostels where they left their books and other useful materials before the lockdown of 23rd of March last year, also saying that most of the lecturers are yet to cover half of their scheme of work.
It was also gathered that many students are yet to return to school uptill weekend.
A 300-level engineering student identified as Stephen demanded that the school management should have given enough time for the students to return, set and prepare, before fixing the exams.
According to him, although they are reading, it is with the notion that they may not eventually pass.
“Students are lamenting that they left their books and other useful materials in the hostel before they left for home following the Federal government directive for all schools to be shut down on the 23rd of March last year. This is because no one knew the holiday was going to be that long, coupled with the ASUU strike. It is only proper that the school management give enough time for us to get prepared and ready for the exams. So they didn’t do well in this aspect and that is why students are preparing to protest,” he said.
Another student who spoke on the condition of anonymity, wondered how the school intends to conduct the exams when there is a standing rule that students who fail to pay their school fees will not be allowed to sit for exams.
According to him, almost all the students were yet to pay their fees.
“Many students are yet to pay their school fees for the present Academic session. Not just that they haven’t paid but there is this rule by the school authority that without payment of school fees, no one writes exams. This has caused many students to stay back and see if they would be able to make that money. Some students are even doing various jobs to see if they would be able to make the said money before the deadline. This now becomes a challenge to these set of students who are yet to pay their fees,” he observed.
He also revealed that even those who were ready to pay, are having serious difficulties with the school’s payment portal.
“The NAU application which can be found on Google play store that enables so many activities in school which include, the generation of Remita Retrieval Reference also known as (RRR), Registration of courses etc is malfunctioning. There is a number generated through this application with which students pay their school fees and other fees. Now, the application has stopped working since four days ago and students are now unable to pay their fees and register their courses. This very problem is supposed to be tackled by the school ICT team, but till now, nothing has been done about it. Those who have the money at hand, are now unable to pay because of this major factor,” he alleged.
But the Students Union Government President in the University, Comr. Samuel Jude had in a statement, called on the students to shun the protest.
The Union said it is already committed to bringing a lasting solution to the issue at hand, as the grievances have been related to the school management and a meeting has been fixed to rectify it.
Meanwhile, an internal memo which TNC was privy to, revealed that the school management has directed all Heads of Department, to shelve checking for payments till the second week of the month so as to give students more time to pay up.
The memo also acknowledged the students’ complaint of the glitch in its portal, asking that students be allowed till the next week to make their payments.
