Published 24th Oct, 2023

By Timileyin Akinmoyeje

Ahmad Usman, a Lagos-based bank official, applied to study at the Lagos State University, under the higher national diploma (HND) conversion sub-degree programme in 2020. At the time, Usman already had an HND in electrical engineering from the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro. He wanted to convert his HND to a BSc. The idea then was to leverage the bachelor’s degree to access better opportunities in the Nigerian civil service. He had concluded that the HND – B.Sc dichotomy could shield him from certain benefits.

In 2023, a year after he completed the conversion programme, Usman does not have proof of graduation. Since he wrote his final exam in August 2022, the Lagos State University has provided different excuses for the delay each time Usman requests for his result.

Like Usman, other graduates of the HND conversion programme have been unable to access their results since they completed the programme in August 2022. Upon examination, FIJ gathered from accounts of lecturers and students under the programme that the result delay is a reflection of poor management and negligence by the Lagos State University.

NO RESULTS AT ALL, NOT EVEN AFTER EACH SEMESTER

Current and ex-students of the HND conversion programme that spoke to FIJ seem to hold a unanimous view: result management under the programme is poor.

Current students that spoke to FIJ, for instance, explained how it was nearly impossible for them to evaluate their performances. The reason? There is no means, physical or digital, for them to access results at the end of an academic session.

Speaking about her experience with result management, Lawal Owoyele (not real name), a student of communications, told FIJ that she had had to rely on the goodwill of her lecturers to access her results after each semester.

“If you know lecturers or if you are free enough to walk up to them, you can know your exam and test scores. But they don’t post our results after each semester. There is no website for you to check on. Some of the lecturers are nice, though. They will show you,” she told FIJ.

Confirming Lawal’s claims, Jimoh Oladele (not real name), a civil servant who enrolled at the same time as Usman, told FIJ he did not know whether he had failed or passed some courses. Like Lawal, Oladele also had to rely on his relationship with lecturers to access some of his results during his time as a student under the conversion programme.

“In retrospect, we should have seen all of these coming. There are a lot of pointers to how this programme is improperly managed. While I was still enrolled, we did not get test or exam results. Even worse, you wouldn’t know how you performed after every session if you did not compute your results yourself after gathering the scores from lecturers,” Oladele explained.

IT HAS BEEN EXCUSES UPON EXCUSES SINCE WE FINISHED

Speaking about result management, Usman narrated his experience with the management of the conversion programme since he graduated. He has reasons to believe that the delay is intentional. According to him, the students have had to navigate one major problem or the other every time they request for results.

“First, it was issues with uploading our results. Later, it was because they had not paid some of the lecturers and staff,” Usman told FIJ. “It started like a harmless issue then snowballed into something big, and we started begging. After so much back and forth and begging, they began uploading our result in March 2023. They said we would graduate with the graduating set at the time.

“However, that could not happen. According to them, the result upload was marred with various anomalies ranging from absent results to wrong results. At the time, they pended our graduation.”

“There was one time I called my programme coordinator before our results were uploaded, and it seemed he had had not been paid for the work done.

“I think they saw that failure to release our result as the leverage to force the hand of the school. I can even say now that the director of ICT is the one delaying our results, as he’s not opening up the portal”

Oladele confirmed Usman’s account. He thinks that the situation is a stark reflection of inadequate management, indifference and corruption within the institution.

“See for instance, in what properly functioning programme do you not have classrooms for students? We also paid for medicals, about N30,000. Till we finished, we did not do any medicals,” he said.

“I know we have incompetent people in the ICT department. We paid N250,000 in tuition alone, yet we have no functional website. Result management is zero.”

“You cannot register courses sometimes. The website is only good if they want to collect money. It was popular among students that lecturers were not paid for a year at some point. Some believed that they intentionally kept our results because of that.

“Oh, just so you know, some of our lecturers are PhD students. Some lecturers push their work to their PhD students, but with no remuneration. The school does not pay them.

“I think the management generally does not care about the programme. It is not more than a revenue generation stream for them. They promised us a resolution soon. They said on the 28th, but we have gone down that route many times and nothing has happened,” Oladele narrated.

DEEPER THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE

Staff of the Lagos State University working under the sub-degree programme had the most to reveal about how the university’s negligence and managerial inconsistencies crippled the programme.

A lecturer and a programmes officer agreed to speak to FIJ on the prevailing problems under the condition of anonymity. First, they both posited that the problems were really deep. They also hinted at power tussles among the senior officers that manage the programme.

Citing specific instances of poor welfare, the lecturer explained how the university had delayed remuneration for the staff that run the programme. He also described the total negligence of the management towards operations, especially as it relates to funding.

“I can assure you that the lecturers are doing everything in their power to make this programme run smoothly. But how much can we do when there is no money to run the programme?” He queried.

“For instance, lecturers have not been paid for a year now. The ones that run the programme do it for the passion. When we want to run exams for the students, we do it with our money, and reimbursement may not even come, depending on the whims of the powers that be.

“There is more to this thing than meets the eye. There is the problem with the ICT for one. But there is the major problem of funding. These people paid too much for the type of services they are getting.”

The programmes officer confirmed some of these complaints. He also said that the solution to the issues had been presented to the management repeatedly.

“These issues are not without solutions, but the people who are supposed to take care of them remain stubborn. I won’t mention names. Just know that it is a systemic issue, and we won’t get a solution until the people in charge take action. We’ve suggested decentralising the ICT for instance; let them give the sub-degree programmes their own sub-units,” the officer said.

INSTITUTIONS STILL RATE BSc HIGHER THAN HND

FIJ gathered that the problems of the conversion programme are not exactly hidden. In July for instance, The PUNCH reported how lecturers were owed remunerations, and how the programme was poorly managed.

However, despite these issues, the programme has got applicants for three consecutive cohorts. In fact, FIJ can confirm that the programme has taken applications for a new batch of students and will run an interview on October 28.

Why do students still apply for the conversion programme? The federal government did indeed pass the bill to abolish the HND – BSc dichotomy in 2021. Three years before that, the same government approved equal salaries for HND and BSc holders in the national civil service. Usman and Oladele explained why the programme would continue to thrive notwithstanding. Usman cited instances of the disparity in job descriptions and salaries in the private sector, where he works.

“Yes, I opted for it even though I have HND. FG making moves to make it equal to BSc is not the same as reality. The dichotomy is very much alive and vibrant, so much that there are many civil servants from LASU (bursars, account officers) and Lagos State staff that joined us in the first set. They all needed the BSc to upgrade and seek promotion,” he said.

“I opted to do this programme to beat the dichotomy, as I work in the banking sector. The sector heavily subjects HND holders to second-fiddle jobs and tag them ‘contract staff.'”

Oladele also spoke about the reason for deciding to get a BSc despite the supposed reforms to end the dichotomy in the civil service. He allotted the blame to regulatory bodies like the National University Commission. According to him, no reform can end the dichotomy as long as the institutions that maintain it survive.

“This dichotomy benefits certain people, especially higher-ups in the regulatory bodies, NUC for instance,” he said.

“They cannot be struggling with polytechnics for the same funding, so they sabotage the efforts of the FG. All these reforms are just paper reforms.”

“I am safe because I have a job already. Others are not so lucky. They will offer you ridiculous pay because you finished from a polytechnic, but even in the civil service, the dichotomy still exists.”

FIJ sent an email to the Lagos State University on October 20 about the complaints of the students and the lecturers but had not got a response at press time.

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