The Dean Of Student Affairs of Obafemi Awolowo University, Prof. J.A. Odedire has stated the plans of the University to upgrade and redesign the Students’ Identification Cards to a new one that will enable students to use their ID cards from part 1 till they graduate from the University.
The Dean of Students’ Affairs, Professor Odedire said this during an interview with ACJOAU correspondent on Thursday, regarding reasons why ID cards were not made available for students’ usage during the session.
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Meanwhile, during the 2022/2023 Academic Session, students faced irregularities during tests, examinations, practicals and other important activities that required their means of identification. Hence, there was no response from the University management concerning the reasons why ID cards were not made available. Also, several stale students have concluded that the ID cards given to them in their 100L and 200L, as the case may be, are to be used for as long as they’re undergraduate students of the University.
Ezeh Marvelous, a 100L student of Faculty of Law, while speaking with ACJOAU correspondent, recalled how he was denied access to Scholarship, while registration was ongoing, due to the unavailability of ID cards. He noted that the University issued ID card is a prerequisite for several things to be done as a student.
Marvelous advised that, ‘OAU should take cognizance of it, because we paid for our tuition fee and have our necessities’. The 100L student said students ID card is an entitlement, regurgitating that the Students Identification Cards were not provided for them to identify themselves during examinations.
Faseyitan Samuel, a 100L student from the Department of Mass Communication narrated his ordeal during an SSC102 examination. It was recounted that students were delayed from entering the examination due to the unavailability of ID cards. Samuel noted that he and other students were requested to present their printed course form, which should be signed by the HOD of the department. ‘We were later permitted to enter the exam venue toward the end of the exam, but I used 13 minutes, instead of the 30 minutes I was meant to use. The ICT officials forced us to log out, saying the examination time was up’, Samuel said.
Although some were able to write the examination, the 100L Mass Communication student stated that some other students missed the examination because they went to get their course form signed and stamped. Unfortunately, they were unable to do get it stamped from their respective departments. ‘We probably wouldn’t have experienced this misfortune if we were provided with the Students’ ID Card’, Samuel added.
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Explaining the reasons on Thursday, the Dean of Students Affairs noted that ‘it was unintentional’ to have made the students face the plights of unavailability of ID cards during the 2022/2023 Academic Session. He clarified that the ID cards were not made available due to the upgrade and redesign of the ID cards going on. He noted the initiative of upgrading the ID cards will take the University a long process. The process as explained by him is to create a ‘Smart Campus‘, and the ID cards will enable them perform other functions such as wallet.
He further stated that the University management is prioritizing a condition in which students’ ID cards will no longer have to be renewed after a session has ended, nor will they be renewed till the students graduate from the University. Prof. Odedire apologized on behalf of the University management to students who were affected by the unavailability of ID cards and therefore urged students to remain calm as the initiative process has reached 80% completion.