My name is Itoro Archibong and I'm a student of one of the federal universities in Nigeria!
There is every reason for me to shut up about this and walk away and there is every reason for the fear of victimization by my lecturers to kick me off balance and make me walk away but I'm still holding on to the reason that if the people keep shut about everything and do not take a bold step then the problem will never get solved!
I'm studying Linguistics and after the summer break I'll be in my finals!
I have surfed all crannies of my school and perceived alot of irregularities ongoing.
This will make a good article for the school media but the media itself is after a reputation I do not understand the dignity of its upholding if the truth and rights of students are not protected all because of fear of victimization.
FIRSTLY, I WANT TO STATE A PROBLEM THAT HAPPENED RECENTLY AND HOW MY CLASS HAS SEVERELY SUFFERED FROM A CRIME THAT WE SHOULDN'T HAVE SUFFERED.
During our first practical class on 'Practical Phonetics' at the lab, unfortunately, the lecturer lost her laptop and that of the lab attendant.
According to her, the laptop was already condemned and she only needed the disk or drive inside to get some documents. She pleaded that the student who took those laptops should return them as there was nothing much that student would accomplish with a condemned laptop.
That went on and on and we never had a class on that course!
Unbelievable!
The lecturer punished the whole class already, and according to her we were all going to fail that course! That was a 3 credit unit course and since resumption we have never had any lecture because on the first day, the lecturer lost her laptop.
This matter was reported to the Head of Department who also stated that we will have to carry the cross. For good 13 weeks that classes were on in other departments, we were all about begging and pleading for classes and that was not granted.
The crime of a student was extended to a class of about 130 students. To make that look legal for them, they brought up the saying that:
When a dog spills a meal, the other dogs go hungry!
And on the commencement of examination, our HOD addressed us that because they do not want to step on our toes, we will have 2-3 practicals/classes and write our exams.
That whatever we score and what ever question we see is our own business!
We reported secretly to the student affairs and they replied that we must officially put up a letter with a name of a student as the addresser to confirm the authenticity of the information.
Are the student affairs division now implying that a verbal report is not official enough?
Can't a letter be sent out with an anonymous identity?
Can't they protect the students by working on this when they know it's true?
Once such letter is put up, that student's details goes out and believe me you, all the lecturers in that department will work on bringing him/her down. Your As will turn Ds and Cs if you're very good and that will bring down your grade! The students are very scared!
Two classes or practical sessions are not enough for a student to perfect any study in a linguistic course! But our lecturers decide to forsake 100+ student because of a crime committed by a student. What school management will let this pass them without treating it as important?
OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM IS CORRUPT!
SECONDLY I WANT TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE EXAMINATION BOARD
Recently, I wrote a paper during exams. A 3 credit unit course exams with instructions of examination time limit for 3hrs was written for 1:30hrs on the strict supervision of our HOD and other lecturers.
After the exams, we were so sad that some of my course mates reported to me. As the assistant class rep I had to source for a solution to this problem. I met one of our lecturers who was close to me and he was amazed. He advised me to meet the HOD personally since it was his course and he engineered the whole idea of submitting when it was 1:30hrs time.
On seeing the HOD, after informing him that we were unable to finish up all the questions as the time was so limited, He came up with an absurd excuse why he had to make the exams so quick:
According to him, students were caught interacting in exams hall. Forwarding answers around the hall and then he thought that if the time was limited, everyone would want to finish up their works before helping their friends. So, by the time they were done there would be no time to assist others who had not written.
This is a task that should have been avoided and treated by installing good security measures and invigilators during the examination to avoid examination malpractice.
In his decision making, he did not consider the slow writers, he did not consider students who try to study the questions, build up better vocabularies and think of the best response before writing on their answer booklets.
No!
He didn't, he was all about himself and his limited wisdom for creating better solutions to security problems!
Who has the boldness to walk down to student affairs to report such case and not suffer the wrath of other lecturers?
Automatically, the reporter would not graduate with his/her deserved grade. Because there will be a mandated subtraction in every academic effort that student makes in that department. As would turn to Bs and Cs if they see they cannot fail you!
OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM IS CORRUPT!
Everywhere everyday, students experience victimization.
You oppose a lecturer in a political mission in school, you suffer victimization.
You question a lecturer in class in such a way he/she cannot respond, you suffer victimization.
You meet the relevant authorities to prove you're being victimized, you suffer more victimization!
We pay a sum of money for departmental T-shirts yet what we got was worth only half of the payment!
A professor died and we were mandated to pay for a copy of his burial tribute! Without payment, no registration pincode for course registration was given!
No adherence to timetable. A lecturer would just wake up to fix an impromptu class the next day and punish those who stay back from the class!
As academic Scholars shouldn't we have an adherence to time consciousness?
Shouldn't time for classes be properly adhered to?
Lecturers go about attending seminars, projects and events that clash with our classes without rescheduling for the classes. We carry forward, where ever they stop, we read up the whole other topics and get to see questions from those angles on examination days!
Not to omit the management! Security F9! Night class students complain of insecurities all the time!
The library cannot be opened until 10pm! A tertiary institution library only operates for 10-11 hours a day!
Restroom! 😢 Don't even go there. Just skip that part. You have to take yours home if you want to perfect your hygiene!
We have to front this movement!
The students have rights and I wonder how we would spell out these rights!
We pay for amenities in our tuition!
What is wrong?