Some stakeholders in the education sector on Thursday called on the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to organise a seamless National Identity Number (NIN) registration process for their students.
The stakeholders, who gave the advice in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), urged NIMC to introduce a simple and decentralised NIN registration process where students would obtain their NIN without any difficulty.
NAN reports that NIN is mandatory for students taking the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams.
Mrs Ebunoluwa Sewuese, the principal of Rahinna Model School, Jikwoyi, Abuja, said the NIN process should come with ease for prospective students writing the JAMB and O’ level exams across the country.
Sewuese said that if the process of obtaining the NIN is streamlined, it would help secondary school students pursue other exam registrations with ease.
“There is need for NIMC to have sub centres in various accredited school premises or making it easily accessible or by opening its portal for self-service applications to some certain extent.
“Until the process is streamlined, there will be students who are yet to register and so many of them would be unable to do it before exams,’’ She said.
Another school administrator, Mr Majagi Garba from Royal High School, New Karu, Nasarawa State, said that obtaining NIN for secondary school students has further complicated rigorous process of registering them for O level exams.
“ In addition to registering their WAEC and JAMB examinations, procuring the NIN has added more hardship.
“Insistence on National Identity Number (NIN) as mandatory without resolving the bureaucracies around it is adding to students’ registration predicament,’’ he said.
He said the need to address the untold hardship caused by the introduction of NIN as a compulsory requirement for JAMB registration cannot be overemphasised.
A parent, Mr Isah Ibrahim of Asokoro, FCT, attributed network irregularities to the process of obtaining NIN.
“ Because JAMB has since made it mandatory for student seeking admission to university to obtain a NIN.”
“ From all indications, these technical hitches bedeviled NIN registration are yet to be addressed.
“ The long queues at NIMC centres are a testimony to the fact that a well organised process is yet to be put in place to ease the stressful process of registration,’’ he said.
Mr Ubah Sani, another parent, said if the process of obtaining the NIN was tedious for most secondary school students, it would hinder their admission into higher tertiary institutions.
He said although the idea of getting NIN for students was a very apt and welcoming idea but the cumbersome process of obtaining it most times was worrisome.
“Time has come when we have to show concern for what is happening to students presenting NIN before they are registered for WAEC or JAMB,’’ he said.
A parent, Mrs Sarah Jones, alleged that the Commission was making things difficult for millions of candidates preparing for the forthcoming exams.
According to her, many candidates don’t participate in routine class lectures and activities due to the persistently long queues in order to obtain their NIN.”
“ My son who recently registered for NIN and got his number a few days after spending many hours for several days with different complaints from NIMC staff from the centre he registered.’’
“ Some of his colleagues could not register for the examination due to the inability of the NIMC in Lagos to upload to the server in Abuja.’’
Mrs Ima obong, a schoolteacher in Karu, Abuja, also expressed concern over the inability of her students to generate profile codes due to issues around NIN linkage.
“It’s a national crisis and thousands of SS3 students in my school have not been able to register.
“ Out of 60 students, only 10 have been able to register for NIN, while others are still struggling and out of this number, only four have successfully registered for UTME.”
She noted that the situation remained the same in other schools within the metropolis, as students could not get their profile codes because of similar problems.
A UTME candidate, Paul Biya, expressed fears of missing out on his JAMB lessons and WAEC tutorials just because of the long hours he spent at the Karu centre to obtain his NIN.
“I have an Android phone that I used to start my UTME registration. My SIM is registered but I have not been able to get my NIN.
“ I cannot generate my JAMB profile code on the application portal because of my inability to register for NIN.
Another parent, Mr Isa Keffi, said his ward may not be able to write the exam if she does not get the NIN.
“Even some of those who registered earlier this year and got their NIN could still not register for the examination due to network challenges and inability to link their NIN during the registration process.
Nkechi Isaac, who was spotted at a NIN centre in Nyanyan Abuja, alleged that she paid for NIN registration because she could not withstand the long queue and slow process.
“I thought I could avoid the payment but after going there for two days without success, I decided to cough out the money so that I would face other things.”
Martha Musa, who cited poor infrastructure and network as some of the problems, suggested that appropriate facilities should be put in place to drive digital service delivery.
“We all know the poor quality of our services in terms of Information and Communication Technology. The compulsory NIN policy is of huge inconvenience to poor students and society at large.”
She emphasised the need to address the poor pace of registration at the various NIN centres, poor implementation and lack of foresight by the exams body.
Similarly, Proprietor of Prime Model College, Abaji, Mrs Kemi Taiwo, wondered how exams body expects candidates to survive the stress of NIN enrolment coupled with reading.
Gado Isaac, a UTME candidate in Nasarawa state, said he traveled to Abuja for registration due to poor infrastructure and network service in his community.
“ It was cumbersome because we had to queue for a long time to register, and some people have been coming to the office for the past three days with achieving anything,’’ he said.”(NAN).
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