The University of Cross River on Wednesday said that systemic transitions, upgrades, and inherited administrative challenges were factors responsible for the delay in the release of students’ results.

The director of exams and results of the university, Anderson Etika, disclosed this at a media chat in Calabar.

There had been an outcry from students who had graduated from the university but had not yet received their results.

Speaking on the situation on Wednesday, the director noted that the university was still at the stage of migrating from the old results portal to a new one when the current vice-chancellor assumed office.

He said that the vice-chancellor assumed office on January 26, 2025, alongside most of the institution’s key management staff, and immediately instituted reforms, even though the challenges predated her.

Mr Etika said that the challenges arose from incompatibility between the old and new portals, adding that the process had hindered a seamless migration of over 20 years of students’ academic data.

He said that liabilities and funding issues had led to the shutdown of the old portal before data migration.

“Management now resorted to retrieving hard copy results from departments, dating back to 2002; a process that was tedious and time-consuming.

“After sustained efforts, the university recovered data exceeding five million records from the old portal. However, priority is given to graduating students, leading to the upload of results from the 2017–2018 to 2022–2023 academic sessions within two months,” he said.

The director identified potential discrepancies arising from differences in programming languages and data structures between the two portals. He noted that the new system now allows real-time access to results immediately after they are uploaded.

Mr Etika said that the reforms have curbed result manipulation, since updates now require approval from the vice-chancellor and must be accompanied by documented justification.

He said that it was now mandatory for lecturers to upload results within two to three weeks after examinations, or face sanctions, adding that students could now submit petitions and receive feedback on disputed results through the improved system.

He appealed for patience, noting that result processing required accuracy to avoid awarding the wrong degrees, and added that students whose data remained in the old portal could not be graduated until migration was complete.

(NAN)