Alumni of the University of Nigeria (UNN) can now access their transcripts from anywhere in the world as the institution has introduced an online portal for transcripts.

The university says the introduction of the service is to ease the burden of students who often have to travel all the way down to the school for the sole purpose of getting a transcript of their academic records for graduate studies or employment.

The UNN “i-transcript”, as it is branded, is accessible on the university website alumni.unn.edu.ng/itranscript. Users fill a form with their names, matriculation as well as email address. They then provide details of the institution to which they want the university to send the transcript.

Vice Chancellor Prof. Bartho Okolo said the UNN i-transcript service draws from on-going work on digitizing academic records in the institution. The first part of the exercise involves digitization of records of the last 30 years up to 1980. News Express learnt that the school has already digitized records of students’ academic work for the last 20 years. In the second phase, the institution would compile records up to its inception in 1960.

According to Okolo, the VC, “Every student can get his records from the transcript portal. They apply online, pay using any of the payment services and get a signed and authenticated e-transcript in a few days. Hard copy records would be couriered either locally or internationally and take a few more days as well as cost additional sums.”

He said the e-transcript service is one of several reforms aimed at fulfilling the transformation vision for the university. It builds on efforts in the last two academic sessions to ensure that graduands get their certificates immediately while semester examination results are compiled and approved by faculties and senate within 14 days of examinations ending.

Manifestations of the transformation effort are visible in the enhanced physical structures and outlook of the university as well as its recent return to a normal academic calendar (October to June) after nearly 10 years of distorted sessions due to strikes, disturbances and environmental causes.

UNN is the first full-fledged university in Nigeria, founded in the country’s independence year 1960. The 52-year-old institution runs diverse programmes in arts and sciences featuring 15 faculties and about six directorates charged with special projects. It has a student body of 40,000 in four campuses of Nsukka, Enugu, Ituku Ozalla and Aba. It also has staff strength of over 6,000 workers.

The main campus in Nsukka houses programmes in agriculture, basic and biological sciences, engineering, arts and social sciences while the Enugu campus houses professional courses in management, architecture, law and environmental sciences. The College of Medicine, with a teaching and referral hospital, is located at Ituku-Ozalla, on the outskirts of the Enugu state capital, while the School of Languages is located at Aba, in Abia State.

UNN has a large alumni body, having graduated its first set since 1963. The performance of its alumni earned the school a stellar reputation in the early days.

Prof. Okolo, the 12^th and current Vice Chancellor, has articulated a new vision of internationalizing the university by turning it into a world-class institution with the enabling environment of infrastructure, faculty and learning environment, funding and international linkages.

•Photo shows UNN Vice Chancellor, Prof. Bartho Okolo.