By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The Student Union Government (SUG) at the Institute of Public Administration and Management (IPAM) has questioned the promotional list of classes that have been published by the college authorities. In a press release by the SUG, its President, Alpha Kabba, expressed concern over missing grades of possibly hundreds of students.
“With reference to the pass list published, there have been series of dissatisfaction by students. Most of them only see their progressive status whilst most of their grades are pending publication. The question here is, where was this pass list extracted [from] when all the grades have not been published? And what was the yardstick from which these pass lists were obtained?” the release states.
Students in the college have complained for years about inefficiency of the administration to handle their grades. The college administration is notoriously known for misplacing the grades of students. The consequence on students has ranged from writing references to repeating a whole year without their fault.
“Asking students with missing grades to repeat a class is considered unjust to the academic assessment of students…As a union, we are drawing the attention of the appropriate authorities to review the pass list of students and rectify these with the aforementioned issues so as to secure robust and fair assessment of vulnerable students in pain whose voices we are representing,” the statement continued.
Politico contacted the university administration for comment, but they said a meeting would be held and a decision announced in due course. However, the Director of Media and International Relations of USL, Tonya Musa, told Politico last Friday that whiles the university was working on fixing the issue, they also knew that some students attempted to cheat the university system by “falsely” claiming that their grades were missing.
“The issue of missing grade is conspiracy. Some students genuinely have missing grades, whiles others have falsified missing grades. They normally go to the exam, enter their names on the attendance list and when they have been given the question paper and realized they don’t know the questions, they will take excuse and leave the hall. Some even take away their booklets so [that] when results are out it is missing grades,” he explained.
According to Musa, an official decision or statement on the issue was due this week. But that hasn’t happened.
Kabba also said that they were in talks with university authorities but haven’t had any headway yet.
“We are still waiting on them to reply to my letter. They (USL authorities) told me they will get to me hopefully next week. The grades are yet to be out. Although they are releasing some of them, but not all; some departments have, whiles some are yet to have (their grades),” he said.
More than a week since classes resumed, possibly hundreds of students are not certain about their grades and possible promotion in the new academic year. The college will close in the coming days for the festivities.
Zainab Sesay, a final year student at the college expressed frustration to Politico about this situation.
“We have seen the pass list, but our second semester grades have not been published, although they promised to release it soon. But I must say I feel very bad about it. How can they release pass list without grades?” she lamented.
She later added: “The issue is only about pass list. They told us to even re-sit reference exams without producing our grades. This is unfair.”
This is not the only concern students at IPAM have. They also have concerns about the sudden change in the grading system and the hiring of external markers for examination scripts, which they believe have all contributed to the current situation that students go through.
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