In what is turning out to be the most unusual thing to ever happen in the Higher Education sector in Cameroon, many students of the University of Bamenda indeed had their matriculate numbers taken away from them after previously being admitted into various PhD and Master’s Degree programmes of the University.
Without much of an explanation, another list was controversially put up by the administration. This list had been practically guillotined down by more than 80% of the original list of students who had previously started lectures on grounds of being admitted to study these programmes.
“We applied for admission into the University of Bamenda and were admitted, given admission letters and matriculated, and when lectures were about to kickoff this January, we were simple asked to hold on. Surprisingly, a new admission list emerged from the same administration. In the department of History where I applied, 42 students were admitted, but the new list has only six students with no explanation. It is the same scenario across the Faculty of Arts. For now we are just confused and mobilizing,” complained a victim of the pedagogic fraud.
With the turnout of events, the school administration of the University of Bamenda has failed to give an official explanation as to why students lost their admissions after being admitted.
Dozens of disgruntled applicants have also demanded explanations from various university officials but without much success.
The criteria that was used by the Administration of UBa to sieve out the students that had been admitted is still a mystery.
According to the students who were stripped off their admissions, the closest response given by the school authorities was that another admission procedure was going to be conducted and that potential students would have to reapply to gain admission.
“That will mean that we will have to redo everything from scratch, including paying admission charges and registrations together with other fees, which amount to not less than 30,000frs per student. And moreover we are not sure if we will get this admission or not,” a victim said.
The irregularities in the admission processes which is yet to be cleared by UBa Management has equally affected programmes yet to be completed by some departments in the institution.
Students of the College of Technology (COLTECH) were left reeling their luck as the Admission for PhD programmes were closed even before the Master’s students of the same COLTECH had defended their degrees. This gave them no chance at all to apply for a PhD for the programme.
Students have reportedly tabled these numerous complains but have failed to be provided a response. Some students confirmed with MMI to have equally already rented their rooms at exorbitant amounts. Such will be lost should the authorities of the institution not find a quick fix.
“If this is not fixed, then I’m doomed. We are desperate to go back to school. I have spent hundreds of thousands already on my rents and other school acquisitions… I don’t understand how students could be admitted, given registration numbers and a different list comes up without annulling the previous one and no explanation on what has transpired,” another victim told Mimi Mefo info.
University authorities are yet to react.
