Registrar office, the underpinnings of any educational institution shoulders huge responsibilities. And one heading it, will always be in the thick of things managing enrolment, securing records, counseling students & staff, enforcing regulations and arbitrating grievances, the list is endless.

Dr Belete Yilma, Registrar, discussing wide range of issues, informed as to how his team is well organized to handle increasing responsibilities this year in a free-wheeling interview.

On present scenario, he said, ‘‘This year enrolment stands at around 30,000 as Ministry of Education has assigned over 6000 new students in different streams as university will have 12 PhDs and more PG programs in different disciplines.’’

Relating interesting trend, he said that over 1500 new entrants literally scrambled to opt accounting compared to 500 of last year and equal numbers have selected continuing and distance mode following the cut point in regular going up. Accounting is attracting students as it has high job potential from across different sectors, he adds.

This time, he stresses, the moment new entrants stepped in, they were provided with provisional ID-cards, brief orientation and different informative manuals i.e. SMIS, academic, rules & regulations as my team was prepared in advance to handle the situation.

On his team’s strength, he said, ‘‘concerted efforts are on to restructure existing office because mounting workload is making things difficult. But, improved SMIS features, he said, have optimized service delivery of unified ID-card, online access for staff and students to avail utility services.

On challenges, he said, ‘‘Students forgetting their security numbers of ID-card flock to his office, that hinders official routine.’’ To avoid such hassles, AMU in future, may tie-up with Ethio Telecom to provide passwords to such students via mobile application at minimal cost of 2 Birr, to be halved between AMU and telecom company in 60:40 ratio, he maintains.

Ruing lack of secured document handling mechanism, he said, ‘‘Previously, we faced great inconvenience in locating and relocating records; but SMIS system has immensely helped us. Further, in future, an advance mechanism is expected to be in place to digitalize all records.

His emerging priorities include restructuring office, where some appointments academic in nature will be made fully administrative. Second, a project is being developed to digitalize all alumni available documents and records, and a system will be in place to handle Alumni services.

Teaching, he says, is his strength and feels it’s beckoning him. He teaches chemistry and prepares lessons late at night or in the weekend and wants to continue to focus on to it. Till date, to his credit, he has 15 research papers published in international journals.

(Corporate Communication Directorate)