Without a flinch of doubt, one of the unmistakable identities of students is the proud mannerism at which they don their ID Cards around their necks. Aside adding beauty to their appearance, it adds prestige as well.
Bringing this paradigm to Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, you are most likely going to be at sea, asking yourself if truly such paradigm is only peculiar to some schools and immune to others.
The preponderance at which students in MAPOLY don their ID cards is indeed worth extolling. You can hardly pass by 10 students in MAPOLY and come across two putting on their ID cards – that is a prototype of how bad the culture of ID card in the school is.
While this is a fault that cuts across two sides: one from the management and the other: the students themselves, the truth is: we need to look into enforcing the culture of wearing ID Cards on campus.
ID cards, ideally, is a security measure that tends to distinguish between permitted individuals within a territory and unpermitted individuals in a territory. Take for instance, you are on a media assignment where before you are allowed to get into the media stand, you must have your official tag on. One can easily identify a person with the official tag as an accredited media personnel, while on the other hand, anyone without the official tag will be easily spotted out and interrogated for what motive they have been where they have not been permitted to be, contributing to the security and efficiency such territory is supposed to have. That is the same result ID cards in schools help birth.
Some students, upon interrogation, on why they don’t put on ID Cards divulged to Press Club MAPOLY that they have not been given their ID Cards, even with some returning students claiming that since they have been in MAPOLY, they don’t have even one ID card to show for it. Our investigations, however, revealed that some of these students are culpable for why they don’t have ID cards as they sometimes apply for it, submitting their passports photographs, but never come back to get it when it is ready. For some, they never think it expedient to apply for it, going about their academic session without one. For some, the complaint is that, the authorities keep telling them it is not available till they are fed up with checking in on it, and ultimately, let it go. For those who have and don’t put it on, they said they saw no relevance of putting it on as it is too much stress to them, so they will rather have it in their bags or not take it along with them at all.
From the foregoing, one could see the shortcomings of the students in invigorating the culture of ID cards. But even at that, it could also be seen that the management has also not been up and doing as to being an enforcer of the culture.
People, naturally and arguably, won’t commit to a task until there is a consequence attached to it. The reason we have law enforcement agencies dotted across the country is down to the predisposition of humans to be lax and inclined to doing things at their whims and caprices. But the moment they come to realize that doing things the way they want carries dire consequences for them, they get to shift to the culture they are expected to comply with for a better society, such that within a short period of time, they become used to it, and we all have a culture endemic to us all.
The management, undoubtedly, has more work to do in this regard to enforcing and enhancing the culture of ID cards in the school. Firstly, it should expedite the process at which students get their ID cards and ensure that no student is allowed to write the first semester exams without the school’s ID card. With this regulation, students would be compelled to get their ID cards as much as the management does the needful to get it ready for them.
Outside exam period, students should be checked at the gate for ID cards before being allowed to enter into the school. A security patrol team should also be seen perambulating the polytechnic community on the lookout for students who are not putting on their ID Cards with defaulters liable to community service for a period of time. Orientation programmes should complementarily be carried out to sensitize students on the need to have their ID cards on at all times. Clubs, Fellowship and Associations on campus should join hands with the management to seeing that they prioritize ID cards among members of their bodies, even going to the extent of recognizing and celebrating students with awards and honours for obedience to school rules.
With all these done, the culture of ID cards will overwhelmingly sweep the polytechnic community and it will get to a point, there won’t be a need for much enforcement as it would have become part and parcel of the students.
