To the first and the best—the home of the best of the best. This is neither overrating nor a result that hasn’t been preceded by a test, but a title well-deserved. The struggle to gain admission to the University of Ibadan is not a drop in the bucket. The barriers to break—sound O’level results,  UTME, PostUTME, and other criteria—were anything but simple. A slot fought for by several thousand students, only for a few, approximately 30+%, to be considered—this is no small feat.

Expected from the giants, who are privileged to make it to this home of giants (University of Ibadan), are good performances accompanied by a mind-blowing score. Of course, they’re able to displace thousands of the best across the country! It is of great concern to see these students, who were able to do these before gaining admission, performing “below expectations”. Isn’t that concerning? What’s the cause of this? Are the students no longer serious? Keep calm and patiently read this article to find what could be a reason, that attention has not been paid to, for this seemingly paradoxical issue.

The fact that students now prefer to use their whole twenty-four hours on social media, coupled with the likelihood of them having crammed/mastered the past questions of the aforementioned exams to pass them in flying colours, is not trashed. Students’ inability to clearly separate frivolities from important matters, and treat each as it should be, is not a small part to play in the reasons for them performing less.

The University of Ibadan is indeed one of the institutions in this country that takes social justice seriously. A well-established set of rules and regulations, with a well-structured channel through which reports can be made to the necessary quarters, should there be the need to—accolades! Students are admitted from different regions, with the same fair and credible Post UTME, across the country, giving the students EQUAL CHANCES, as portrayed by the UI Anthem “Social Justice, Equal Chances”, to learn and prove themselves.

What happens after the admission stage or during the cause of students’ learning is a vital factor to consider before a conclusion can be reached as to whether the CHANCES are EQUAL or not.

How are the chances equal for a student who, when others are in the class receiving lecture or even engaging with some practical sessions, is at the school’s Information Technology and Media Services (ITeMS) trying to sort out his school portal issue? It shouldn’t have been a problem if the issue had been sorted within a blink of an eye—but not—it takes the whole day to a few days, and even a few weeks, of rigorous exercises, at times.

In some cases, the portal displays an amount more than the normal fee, and it happened that those who paid, either all or a portion of the fee, before the displayed fee is corrected to its normal state, have their previous payments cleared. It gave some students additional stress and unrest to figure out how to settle the new bill. This may not be understood until one is a victim or interacts with those this has once affected. Although the fee paid will later be refunded, the means to settle the new bill, for some parties, is not at all an easy task.

This is not, in any way, to blame the school management for this, as their efforts to ensure this is corrected are not unnoticed, but it must be expressed that the recurring nature of this issue is not satisfactory to the students. These issues have, over time, been a recurrent one, making the efforts seem to need improvement.

This is a warm call to action to the school management to help intensify their relentless effort towards mitigating or eradicating the issue of glitches that have always been affecting the school portal.