‘Save our future, release our results

UNIBEN graduates, parents beg institution over delay in marking their examination papers by the History department

FAMILIES of students who graduated from the Department of History and International Studies, University of Benin (UNIBEN), have appealed to the management of the school to speedily intervene and save their wards from the recurring problems of delayed results.

According to the complainants who expressed their pains and agonies to The Guardian, the graduates of the Part-time institute are subjected to delay of results since 2010, leaving the graduates to wait and waste at least two years before their results are released by the department.

One of the parents who spoke to The Guardian, Ambassador Jang Ashipelokhai, decried the non-committal attitude of the department towards the academic pursuits of the students, which he described as a big contradiction of the purpose for establishing the institution.

He flayed the department for the delay in student results, which, according to him, has become the culture of the department, lamenting that it has caused a negative twist in the academic pursuits of the graduates from the institute, who intend to further their studies.

The Ambassador disclosed that his ward, who graduated from the university in 2012, just got his result alongside other alumni in the department, this year. He recounted the losses and psychological effects of the school’s negligence on many of the young, aspiring youths.

According to him: “I wonder why the institution that is created to mould the lives of our young ones now engage in negligence of the highest order that destroys the future of our children. The school authorities must urgently redress the ugly tide and stop contributing to the already worse situation of the innocent young ones by mortgaging their future.”

A visit to the institution on Monday by The Guardian for further investigation, confirmed the ugly development as students thronged the department, anxious to know their fate from the department though the institution is on break.

A graduating student, who only identified himself as Oshomuzamie, expressed great fears over her uncertain future consequent upon the delay in their results and the information they gathered from reliable sources that their scripts have not been marked since they finished their examination in May.

She told The Guardian that she applied for a post-graduate programme in one of the Nigerian institutions but was not granted admission because of the inability to provide a statement of result to the institution, which also rejected “to whom it may concern” paper offered by UNIBEN in lieu of their result.

Another graduating student, who wanted his name off-print, said their greatest fear is their fate, which is continually placed on suspension, revealing that “those who graduated in 2010 got their results in 2012, while those who graduated in 2012 just got their results this year.” He noted that those who had problems in any of the courses waited for that long and later discovered that they had some papers to register again.

Other sources revealed that those who graduated from the department in May 2015 later found out that their examination scripts have not been marked four months after they wrote their final papers, appealing to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Osasere Orumwense to intervene and save their academic pursuits.

Attempts to see the Head of Department (HOD), Prof. L.E. Otoide and the Examination Coordinator, Dr. E.A. Ifidon proved abortive as their offices were under lock and key. All the lecturers in the Education Department distanced themselves from such conversation, maintaining they were not competent to make any comment.

However, a decoy to one of the lecturers who graduated from the department few years back, revealed that delayed results is a tradition in the department, attributing the abnormality to the unusually large size of the department.

He disclosed further that the department has over 400 students with only 20 staff to run its affairs, and, believing our correspondent was there to prove a sister wrong, revealed: “Your sister is saying the truth.