From Christopher Okon, Uyo

Over 9,000 Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) certificates from 2010 have been tracked by the Provost of Akwa Ibom College of Education, Afaha Nsit Prof Daniel Udoh and issued to their owners.

The Provost  also said that his administration has secured full accreditation  for all the  22 NCE and 10 Degree courses and one partial accreditation for a degree course, a departure from the past when academic programmes in the institution were challenged with several unaccredited courses.

Udo who made this known during an interaction with newsmen in his office said that some of the affected students had finished their programmes successfully but their results were not processed while some had their results processed but their certificates were not signed.

The Provost blamed the situation on the dual mode of signature at the colleges where certificates have to be signed in the college before returning to Abuja, for the endorsement by the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Colleges of Education.

“In my tenure by God’s grace we have been able to exhume well over 9000 certificates dating back to 2010.These people had finished but they could not have theirs certificates.

“We had this dual mode of certificates at the colleges. By dual mode I mean after signing the certificates here in the college the certificates have to go to Abuja (NCCE) for the signature of the Executive Secretary before they come back to us.

“Some of these students had finished, some of them the results were not processed, some of the results were processed but their certificates were not signed and you have to pay to NCCE to print the certificates from the Nigerian Security, Printing and Minting Company.

“So, these are the processes. But over 9,000 students on record who had finished without certificates now have certificates. That was in March 2020, so I told them to come on Tuesdays and Thursdays for their certificates,” he explained.

Udoh also disclosed that his administration paid TETFund tax arrears of about N100m out of the N140m incurred by previous administrations in a bid to continue enjoying funding for academic and infrastructural projects from the Fund.

He commended the state government and TETFund for improvement in academic and administrative infrastructure in the school, pointing out that more could have been done if not for the challenges of COVID-19 and increase in cost of materials in recent times.

Projects recently undertaken by the Fund in the school and at various levels of completion he said included the Technical Education building, Electrical installations, ICT building from 2017-19 merged intervention, Academic Building and

The Provost who disclosed that his creation of a portal for paying of school was for reasons of transparency and to avoid leakages while the menace of cultism has also been reduced to the barest minimum with cooperation of the host community.

He said that students’ unrest and other social vices associated with SUG elections was nipped in the bud with the introduction of online voting during SUG elections to reduce violence.

This, he said, has led to the election of popular candidates but also a people backed and active SUG while there has been no issue of disruption of academic activities due to students’ unrest.

On the recent faceoff between him and labour leaders in the school, the Provost confirmed that his actions followed due process while he was exonerated at the end of the impasse.

“But in all this I give God all the glory for His guidance and grace. I want to leave a legacy of all round discipline. I want to leave behind a true academic tradition. I can tell you that there are a few staff in this place who felt that it was going to be business as usual.

“I want to leave a college with records, leave with a true sense of academic and administrative traditions and I am very particular about this. By academic tradition I mean for instance you are not supposed to have a degree when you did not write examinations,” Udoh concluded.