University of Bamenda students decry ‘exorbitant’ platform charges, late registration penalty

Students of the University of Bamenda, UBa, have called on the school administration to revisit the fee they pay to have their results.

In addition to a platform charge of 1,000FCFA paid every semester, they say a late entry fee of 5,000 FCFA is also paid for course registration when semesters are swapped.

“Dear students, we are not denying the fact that a penalty shouldn’t be paid for the late entry, but we are worried about the amount to pay. It is exploitive per se,” reads a note from students to their peers.

“Just the penalty for late entry for course registration is 6,000 FCFA altogether… if a student registers all his/her courses and fails to register for one course or mistakenly registers a wrong course in a particular semester and the semester is swapped to the next, you will have to spend FCFA 6,000 per semester which means if you have mistakes or wrong courses to be corrected in all three semesters you will spend 18,000FCFA as penalty…,” it adds.

The sum, the students explain, is, to say the least, exploitative: “Why do we have to pay charges to get our results?” They questioned further.

“Together, we have to table this at the Division of Student Affairs so adjustments should be made. We have our rights. We deserve to be treated better than this,” the students appeal to their mates.

A similar situation, it should be noted, prevails at the University of Buea where students are compelled to pay to have access to results every semester.

Students say the current Vice-Chancellor, shortly after taking over, made a verbal promise to have it scrapped but has since gone mute.

Mimi Mefo Info