UNN Introduces I-Transcript Service

The University of Nigeria Nsukka has introduced online portal for transcripts that enables her alumni to access their transcripts from anywhere in the world.  According to the The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof BarthoOkolo, the UNN i-transcript service draws from on-going work on digitizing academic records in the institution. The first part of the exercise, according to him, involves digitization of records of the last 30 years up to 1980. The school has digitized records of students' academic work for the last 20 years. In the second phase, the institution would compile records up to its inception in 1960.

The University disclosed that the introduction of the service was to ease the burden of students who often have to travel all the way down to the school for the sole purpose of getting a transcript of their academic records for graduate studies or employment.

The UNN "i-transcript", as it is branded, is accessible on the university website alumni.unn.edu.ng/itranscript.

Users are expected fill a form with their names, matriculation as well as email address after which they will provide details of the institution to which they want the University to send the transcript. 

"Every student can get his records from the transcript portal. They apply online, pay using any of the payment services and get a signed and authenticated e-transcript in a few days. "Hard copy records would be couriered either locally or internationally and take a few more days as well as cost additional sums." he explained.

Okolo said that the e-transcript service is one of several reforms aimed at fulfilling the transformation vision for the university. It builds on efforts in the last two academic sessions to ensure that graduands get their certificates immediately while semester examination results are compiled and approved by faculties and senate within 14 days of examinations ending.

Meanwhile, Prof BarthoOkolo, the 12th and current Vice Chancellor, has articulated a new vision of internationalizing the university by turning it into a world-class institution with the enabling environment of infrastructure, faculty and learning environment, funding and international linkages.

source-http://allafrica.com/stories/201211210331.html?aa_source=acrdn-f0

Africa told to invest heavily in education to ‘stop poverty transmission’

Delegates at the seventh annual Africa Economic Conference (AEC)  highlighted the benefits of investing in “youth potential” across the continent.

African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka told attendees of the event, which took place in Kigali, Rwanda, that Africa must begin to provide comprehensive and quality education in order to break the poverty chain.

“This is how you stop children from inheriting living conditions of debt, and once you do that you have stopped the transmission of poverty”, Kaberuka said.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) administrator, Helen Clark, who joined Kaberuka for a plenary session entitled Inclusive and Sustainable Development in an Age of Economic Uncertainty, backed up the African Development Bank’s president’s proposals.

“Africa’s dynamic youth population offers the opportunity for a huge demographic dividend. Young people are a source of innovation and creativity – given the opportunity”, she said.

“A visit to technology centres like Nairobi’s I-Hub for young ICT entrepreneurs leaves one’s head spinning with the ideas and possibilities spilling out of that base. Such young people are to be found across the continent.

“Investing in youth potential and the skills needed to drive agriculture and the manufacturing, processing, services, and logistics sectors will reap huge benefits.”

According to the Africa Progress Panel (APP), the proportion of primary school-aged children in Africa that are registered at a school rose from 60% in 2000, when the UN’s Millennium Development Goals were introduced to, amongst other things, achieve “universal primary education”, to 76% in 2009.

Over the same period, the number of children who weren’t registered with a school dropped from 42 million to 30 million.

These findings appear in a report called A Twin Education Crisis is Holding Back Africa, published last month by the APP, a group that consists of 10 individuals who discuss important issues relating to Africa and includes Kofi Annan and Bob Geldof. However, despite the encouraging shifts towards widespread access to primary education, the panel’s report claims that by 2025, some 17 million children will still be out of school – a decade after the UN’s target for worldwide education. Education spending currently averages around 5% of Africa’s GDP, but a greater figure is needed in order to ensure sustainable and equal futures for the continent’s inhabitants.

“Education is where sound economics and ethical imperatives come together to make an overwhelming case for action in favour of jobs and of justice”, the APP report said.

“Good quality education is a solid investment with high rates of return in terms of economic growth and employment creation.

“And learning is the birth right of all African children, irrespective of their circumstances.”

source- http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2012/10/31/africa-told-to-invest-heavily-in-education-to-stop-poverty-transmission/

Al-Makura Blames Past Administrations for Rot in Education Sector

The Nasarawa State government has taken a swipe at the past administrations in the state for their insensitivity towards the education sector which has given rise to the high level of infrastructural decay, especially in primary schools across the state.

Reacting to a photo news of Central Pilot Primary School, Akwanga, published in a leading national newspaper( not LEADERSHIP), in a press release signed by the state Commissioner of Education, Hon. Hussaini I. Abubakar and made available to LEADERSHIP in Lafia, the state government averred that due to the corruption perpetrated by previous governments little or no attention was given to the dire need of revamping the education sector.

The statement noted that the dilapidated nature of schools across the state, "is a clear demonstration of the kind of rot that was inherited by the CPC government from the past administrations arising from insensitivity and recklessness, occasioned by diversion of funds meant for the development of the people of our dear state".

Hon Abubakar also revealed that in Governor Tanko Al-makura's efforts to revamp primary education in the state through the provision of needed infrastructure, contract worth over N9m has been awarded for the rehabilitation of the school which picture was published in the said national newspaper, to Tamarald Nig Ltd and work is expected to be completed in the next two to three months.

The statement further called on the public to guard against those who are bent on dragging the good name of the Al-makura led-government in the mud, saying that they are only jittery because the CPC government is exposing their inefficiency and deceit to which they had subjected the state over the years.

culled from http://allafrica.com/stories/201210100999.html