New Information on Maduka University’s N2 million Transcript Fee and Student Transfer Policy

New details have surfaced about the ₦2 million transcript fee imposed by Maduka University on students in certain professional programs, after a woman publicly accused the institution of withholding her child’s academic transcript.

Education advocate and Chief Executive Officer of Educare, Alex Onyia, said he had extensive discussions with the university’s founder, Dr. Samuel Maduka Onyishi, regarding the controversy.

Onyia reported that university officials disputed the woman’s claims, stating that she had not paid for the transcript she requested and still owed outstanding fees from previous academic sessions.

He also said the woman’s assertion that her child graduated as the institution’s best student was inaccurate.

According to Onyia, the university had already issued a result statement to the student and was willing to release the transcript once the student secured admission to another institution. He added that no such admission had yet been obtained.

Explaining the rationale behind the ₦2 million fee, Onyia said the policy was introduced to discourage students from using private universities as temporary stepping‑stones to gain admission into federal universities.

He noted that many students who fail to secure admission into federal universities because of high JAMB cut‑off marks often enroll in private universities offering professional courses such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy and law.

Onyia said some of these students spend a year in private institutions before requesting transcripts at the 200 level to transfer to federal universities, where JAMB scores are no longer a major admission requirement.

“So students who scored very low in JAMB come to join their school for a year and in 200 level request for transcript to port to a federal university because at that time JAMB score is no more required,” Onyia stated.

The university introduced the policy after observing what it described as a growing trend of student transfers from professional programmes.

Onyia further explained that private universities offering professional courses operate under stringent accreditation requirements despite having significantly lower admission quotas than federal institutions.

According to him, Maduka University is permitted to admit a maximum of 50 medical students, while some federal universities admit up to 250 students into similar programmes.

He added that private universities must maintain comparable standards in terms of lecturers, facilities and equipment despite their smaller student population.

“To be accredited, the university is required to hire the same number of lecturers and equipment a federal university has, but the low slot of 50 is heavily impacting them negatively,” he said.

Onyia noted that the transcript policy primarily affects medicine, nursing, pharmacy and law programmes, where transfer requests are reportedly more common.

He also claimed that several other private universities offering medical‑related courses operate similar policies aimed at discouraging mass transfers of students to public universities.