By Nelson Manneh
Hundreds of students of the University of the Gambia have called on the administration to extend the deadline for clearance of the tuition fee.
According to the students, this is as a result of the weakness of the institution by failing to provide each school with account staff to clear the students to enable them register with ease. Some of them told Foroyaa that they paid their fees at the Trust Bank sometime in August but were not able to register for some weeks because of the number of students who come for clearance
The University of the Gambia has over 5 schools and all students in those schools come to the Faculty of Law for clearance. Before students are able to register for a semester, they must be cleared by the accounts office. Visiting the Peace Building at the Faculty of Law, over 300 hundred students were seen lined up to be cleared by three accounts staff of the UTG. A list was passed where students wrote their names.
Some students called for the UTG to go back to the previous system because the system they are using has not executed in an inefficient manner. They called on management to reinstate the manual system which they consider to be more effective than the portal system which is an online system.
“We cannot register with our phones and other gadgets, with this so called system (the portal system) they now introduce. The system is very ineffective. Some of us do spend most of time to register online; the portal system is not functioning as expected. We end up paying our money to Gamtel in order to register which is not easy. We are students and most of us are not working; so it is very important for the UTG to provide us affordable and reliable services,” they said.
Speaking to Foroyaa, some female students, who were seen sweating, said that they are from Brikama and have been coming to Kanifing at the faculty of law to register their courses on several occasions but to no avail.
“I have come here (at the accounts office in Kanifing) more than five times but I could not register. I used to spend the whole day here but the number of students is too much for only two or three accounts staff to clear” she stated.
The University of the Gambia has a student number of more than 2500 and they all come at the Peace Building at the faculty of law to get their clearance. The new system is such that anyone who is not cleared will not be able to register his or her courses.
“We leave our homes by 5am in the morning just to get a clearance. We do spend a whole day here without getting it,” the students told Foroyaa.
“We come here as early as 6 am but the accounts sometimes starts their work 9 am or some minutes after 9 am. We missed some of our classes just to be cleared. We are calling on the school administration to provide us an efficient and affordable system.
They also stated that all students of the university were seen packed in one hall just to get cleared.
Foroyaa got in touch with the relation officer at the UTG but he declined to comment on the matter.
