NOT only are the Students of the University of Buea as well as prospective aspirants for admission obliged to create an MTN mobile money account, they also now have to pay 500 frs per individual through the mobile money platform each time they want to check their examination results after their exams are marked.

University authorities have given the students two egocentric options on how to get their results. They either:

1. PAY 500FRS CFA THROUGH MTN MOBILE MONEY TO GET THEIR RESULT Or
2. WAIT FOR THE RESULTS TO BE SENT TO THE CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION, WHERE THEY HAVE TO GO AND APPLY AT 1500 FRS IN ORDER FOR THEM TO OBTAIN A PRINTED COPY

The latter “solution” proposal, we all know will not be chosen by students since printing transcripts are more expensive and take an eternity to reach to the beneficiary. So in actual fact, it is the MTN mobile money deal that will seem most probable for the young student who is in a haste to get their results and know the way forward.

I was speaking to a young friend, a student of the University of Buea yesterday when all of a sudden he became so worried about how to get his results. He knew that the results had been published; I said to myself “why does he not just go and check on his results as we usually did back in the days?”

He told me they could now check their results online, an initiative which I Praised. I was then wondering why he was worried about how to get his results Then I assumed he did not have internet time to log into the website to check his results. On the contrary, he had enough data in his phone But lacked money in his MTN mobile money account. He asked me shyly “GRAND FRERE I BEG GIVE ME 500 FRS SO THAT I CAN PAY TO CHECK MY RESULTS” I was scandalized and asked him why he needed to pay to receive his results!!! He replied that every student was supposed to have 500 frs in their individual MTN mobile money account each time they wished to check their results!!!!!

A situation which I doubt if the government that has been trying to make higher education free is aware of. QUESTION With the vast plethora of IT geniuses in the city, what happened to the university contacting a few young startups to build a result platform to be included on the University Website?

What happened to the option of asking for the email addresses of each student and creating a mailing list to which each department will forward the departmental results for the students to check for their results? What happened to outsourcing the result to a small company that will publish it on their website for free and benefit from the traffic that will be created from students bumping in to check their results?

There are so many cheap and easy option which don’t need geniuses to design, so as to ease the lives of these students. I wonder why these options are not considered. WHERE DO ALL THE MILLIONS OBTAINED FROM THIS MAFIA GO TO? However, my real question is. “WHO IS THE MAIN BENEFICIARY OF THIS MAFIA AND WHO SHOULD BE FIRED FOR THIS CRIMINAL OFFENCE?”

By Roland Ndifor
For BaretaNews