MAPAITES plead for postponement of registration deadline

Jamiu Ogunbamowo, Olasunkanmi Akinlotan and Ifedayo Ogunyemi

Students of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic have called on the management of the institution to extend the Friday, February 10th registration following the various challenges hindering them from completing their registration for the semester.

Students who spoke to Press Club MAPOLY listed the challenges as the state of the country’s economy, upgrading of level on the polytechnic portal of ND II and HND II students, delay in ND results for newly-admitted HND I students.

It would be recalled that the management had slated February 10th as the deadline of registration for the semester.

The management also said it would add N5,000 penalty fee for a period of one week before the payment portal is closed finally on February 18th.

The students asked the Management to reconsider it’s decision on the deadline following the challenges currently facing them.

Some returning students who spoke with Press Club MAPOLY said their major challenge was the error of level of their respective portals on the polytechnic website.

The ND II and HND II who approached Press Club MAPOLY from different departments said the current level of their programme of study have not been updated on the website.

Students from the Department of Computer Science, Accountancy, Business Administration, Mass Communication said this is the first time this issue has occurred.

They claimed they were asked to pay N2,000 to obtain Error Form at the Admission Office before their this error could be rectified.

The students said the N2,000 is paid at the Bursary department located at the Administrative block of the institution.

Press Club MAPOLY was reliably informed that hundreds of ND II and HND II students on both full-time and part-time programmes still have ND I and HND I on their portals respectively.

We also learnt that these students were afraid of paying for their previous sessions since the portal shows their previous levels.

The students decried the N2,000 error fee they were being asked to pay by the Admission Office since some students have had their portal successfully upgraded by the management without paying any money.

They however urged the management to properly upgrade their levels on the portal which will enable them to pay the school fees.

Zainab, from the department of Marketing said, “there were lots of problems encountered by the returning students this session, we could not access our various portal properly and there was failure in the upgrade of some students portal. So the management should consider us and shift the school fees deadline.”

Daramola of the department of Mass Communication said he has not paid the fees because of the the mix up on his personal portal on the website.

Daramola, a final year student said his level of the portal still shows HND 1 and that his hindering him from paying his school fees.

“I don’t know what is wrong with my portal. I have not been able to pay school fees because of this upgrade issue.

“I have submitted my names twice to the department so that they can help me to change it to HND 2 but nothing has changed.

“Some students portal were upgraded recently but mine was not.

“The Admission Office directed me to pay N2,000 for the portal to be upgraded. They said it wa my mistake but I’m very certain I never made any error on my portal.

“I remembered I logged in and saw HND 1. I couldn’t pay for HND 1 again so, I complained to get it rectified only for them to tell me to pay for the error which I haven’t made.

“A lot of students have upgraded without paying, why are they asking me and the rest of us to pay?” Daramola queried.

Ifeoluwa from the department of Computer Science bemoaned the stress she went through before her current level was updated on the polytechnic portal.

Ifeoluwa, ND 2 student said this issue also occurred to her coursemates and her friends in HND 2.

“You won’t believe I couldn’t pay my school fees since January because my portal was not upgraded. I almost paid N2,000 to the Admission Office to get the error on my portal rectified.

“I have used part of the money until few weeks ago when the error was rectified. But I have successfully paid now that my portal has been updated.

“I met lots of my friends at the Bursary wanting to pay for the error form as directed by the attendants at the admission office.

“Some of my friends paid N2,000 because of the deadline but I did not pay. I just noticed the error was rectified and I didn’t pay anything to anyone,” Ifeoluwa said.

Some fresh students, particularly in the department of Mass Communication said their pending ND results had stalled the payment of their tuition fees.

An HND I student of Mass Communication, Marvelous Belo said she has not been able to complete her registration because of her ND result which is still pending at the Academics.

Belo claimed this has stopped her from paying the school fee despite the deadline ahead. She also claimed her colleagues are also experiencing the same problem concerning the results.

Some of the students who spoke to Press Club MAPOLY said they have been experiencing a lot of hardship as a result of the downturn in the nation’s economy.

They claimed this has not given the opportunities to them to be able to pay their tuition fees in due time.

Toyin Kehinde appealed to the management to extend the deadline considering the fact that the economy is not encouraging.

Kehinde, a final year student of the department of Office Technology and Management said if the management extends the deadline, it will allow lots of students to pay up their fees.

Ademola Balogun from the department of Business Administration also said that, the strike embarked upon by ASUP was another hindrance towards registration at the appropriate time this semester.

He added that many students often go to the school market to make payments and register properly for the academic session but the ASUP strike didn’t allow them.

“Since there was ASUP strike of one week, we could not do that at the appropriate time,” Balogun said.

The Public Relations Executive, Sulaimon Adebiyi was not on sit when Press Club MAPOLY visited his office on Monday for his reactions.