BY HAMEED MURITALA

A cross section of the 300 level students of the University of Ilorin have appealed to the  school authorities to find a ‘soothing remedy’ to the high rate of failure recorded in two of their first semester general courses that were released recently.

The courses are History & Philosophy of Science in General Studies (GNS 311) and Graduate Self Employment (GSE 301), both of which are computer based examinations.

The students made the appeal at a congress organized by the Students’ Union to discuss the causes and consequences of the mass failure as well as proffer possible solutions that could be taken by the school management to remedy the situation.

They lamented that if nothing is done, “it will cause many students to have an extra year.”

The students opined that the results did not reflect their true performance, saying that they studied really hard for the examinations.

Quadlife  gathered that over 70 per cent of the students who took the courses had E or F in both or either of the courses.

The students attributed the high rate of failure recorded to the change in software of the CBT and technical faults developed by the computers used for the examinations.

A student of Zoology who pleaded anonymity said “on the day of the examination, some technical problems occurred which led to the delay in commencement of the examination resulting to majority of us (students) having our exams around 11 pm and 12 am.

“I got to the CBT centre as early as 9 am on the exam day and did my exam around 12 am due to the technical faults developed by the computer systems.”

He further stressed that the school management should have postponed the examination rather than taking the risk of conducting it with technical errors.

Ogundipe Oluwasegun, a 500 level Law student described the idea of conducting an examination around 11pm and 12 midnight as illogical, unreasonable and inconsiderate, adding that any examination that cannot be conducted before 6pm should be postponed rather than putting mental pressure on the students by stressing them unnecessarily.

Another student who simply gave her name as Blessing, said, ‘’I really wish this was all a dream, I still can’t believe that I failed both GNS and GSE because I studied hard for the exams.

“I would be glad if the school management can look into this and find a solution to it. The results do not reflect the preparation and performance of the students.”

A 300 leve Law student who does not want his name in print confessed that he had E in GSE and F in GNS, noting that this kind of result would have a corrosive effect on his grade point (GP) and possibly lead to him spending an extra year.

‘’All I hope and pray for now is for the school leadership to seat and deliberate on how they can help majority of us who failed the exams,” he said.

At the end of the congress, the Students’ Union President, Aremu AbdulMalik told the students that the SUG would meet with the school management and appeal to them to organize a re-sit of the examination as soon as possible to avert the danger of many of the students retaking the courses next session as carryovers.

The course (GNS 311) is designed to provide general, but introductory knowledge about history and philosophy of Science to both science and non-science students, while GSE 301 is designed to educate the students on how they can discover and develop their entrepreneurial skills and business management.