Fresh details have emerged regarding the ₦2 million transcript fee charged by Maduka University for students in some professional courses, following public criticism by a woman who alleged that the institution was withholding her child’s academic transcript.
Education advocate and Chief Executive Officer of Educare, Alex Onyia, said he held extensive discussions with the founder of Maduka University, Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi, over the controversy.
According to Onyia, the university’s management disputed the claims made by the woman, alleging that she had not paid for the transcript she was requesting and still owed the institution outstanding fees from previous academic sessions.
He further stated that the woman’s claim that her child graduated as the institution’s best student was inaccurate.
Onyia said the university had already issued a statement of result to the student and was willing to release the transcript once the student secured admission into another institution. According to him, no such admission had yet been obtained.
Explaining the rationale behind the ₦2 million transcript fee, Onyia said the policy was introduced to discourage students from using private universities as temporary pathways to gain admission into federal universities.
He noted that many students who fail to secure admission into federal universities due to high JAMB cut-off marks often enroll in private universities offering professional courses such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy and law.
According to him, some of these students spend a year in private institutions before requesting transcripts at 200 level to transfer to federal universities, where JAMB scores are no longer a major admission requirement.
“So students who scored very low in JAMB come to join their school for a year and in 200 level request for transcript to port to a federal university because at that time JAMB score is no more required,” Onyia stated.
He said the university introduced the policy after observing what it described as a growing trend of student transfers from professional programmes.
Onyia further explained that private universities offering professional courses operate under stringent accreditation requirements despite having significantly lower admission quotas than federal institutions.
According to him, Maduka University is permitted to admit a maximum of 50 medical students, while some federal universities admit up to 250 students into similar programmes.
He added that private universities are required to maintain comparable standards in terms of lecturers, facilities and equipment despite their smaller student population.
“To be accredited, the university is required to hire the same number of lecturers and equipment a federal university has, but the low slot of 50 is heavily impacting them negatively,” he said.
He noted that the transcript policy primarily affects medicine, nursing, pharmacy and law programmes, where transfer requests are reportedly more common.
Onyia also claimed that several other private universities offering medical-related courses operate similar policies aimed at discouraging mass transfers of students to public universities.
