All that is required of part-time
students at the Lagos State
University, LASU, is to answer a set
of 70 multiple choice questions
every semester to be awarded a
Bachelors degree, PREMIUM TIMES
has learnt.
In what one university professor
described as a "dangerous
development" in the already poor
standard of university education in the
country, LASU earlier this year directed
all lecturers at its part-time campuses
scattered across Lagos to henceforth
set only multiple choice questions for
all examinations.
Copies of some questions seen by this
newspaper suggest that the questions
were haphazardly put together with
irregular numbering, ridden with
grammatical and sometimes factual
errors. It is devoid of the standardised
quality associated with public multiple-
choice examinations.
There seems to be no effort made by
the university to control and manage
the standard. Invigilation during the
examination was lax, if any at all, we
learnt. Examination halls were so
crowded that some students did their
examination standing in many of the
campuses.
Though results were released in record
time, there were several cases of
missing results.
Al-Amin Alli-Balogun, the President of
the Students' Representative Council,
SRC, said many results were posted in
the wrong campuses. After several
days of searching, some students at
the Agege campus saw their results
posted at Festac campus. Rather than
being an exception, it was the norm
across all campuses, he said.
"The MCQ [multiple-choice questions]
have been able to curb the issue of no
results, missing results and the
excesses of lecturers," he admitted.
However, he described the introduction
of multiple choice questions only as a
"disgusting moment" in the history of
the programme. He said the school
management only introduced it to
deceive students that something is
being done to correct the anomalies of
the programme.
"We don't have qualified lecturers; the
LASU management is only doing this to
deceive the students that the
programme is changing while it is
actually decaying the more. Mass
failure is still an issue. Students don't
have proper records of the examination
they have taken before or the one they
should be taking next," he said.
One student at the Antony campus
described the quality of the printing
papers the questions were printed on
as similar to what one sees during
secondary school mock examinations.
Paradoxically, the examinations were so
substandard that some enterprising
students kicked against the
development to the point of openly
protesting against it to lecturers,
PREMIUM TIMES was told.
A former student leader of the
programme, Julius Adeoye, highlighted
other problems with the examination:
"The literature department, for
instance, write exams based on the
books they've read. We have different
lectures with different books
recommended but are required to
answer the exact same questions. How
do you expect students at the Jibowu
campus, for instance, to answer
questions on a text that wasn't
recommended to them but was
recommended to students at the
Festac campus?
"Writing OMR will not even allow the
students to grow because I can easily
copy and paste but if I'm required to
write theory [essay type questions]
there is no way I can copy everything
from another student. Students don't
even attend classes anymore they just
show up for examination knowing they
can easily copy the answers of other
students," he added.
But LASU management said its
adoption of the multiple choice
questions only for part-time student
was the best solution to the horde of
problems bedevilling the programme.
"For those who know how to develop
the content, multiple choice is a better
assessment than theory," said aide to
the university's Director of External
System, Dayo Akinshola.
"Multiple choice is not an innovation in
Nigeria, as far back as the 1970s
multiple choice has been in existence.
If anybody is against it, it is one of
three reasons: one, the person is lazy
and doesn't know how to set the
questions. Secondly, the person
doesn't want to relinquish his power of
oppression because with multiple
choice questions you're not going to
have contacts with the students again
and thirdly for whatever reasons, the
person wants to frustrate certain
people and he knows with multiple that
will not be possible. The benefits are
endless so whoever doesn't understand
the concept must belong to one of
those three categories," Mr. Akinsola,
who said he has over 20 years
experience as an academic, said.
He said lecturers who criticise the
introduction of the multiple choice
questions are bitter because the
university has effectively plugged their
means of extorting students. He also
denied that the examinations were
conducted in overcrowded rooms. He
challenged any student with proof to
present it.
However, prominent academics in the
country disagree with Mr. Akinsola on
the superiority of the multiple choice
questions as a means of assessment.
Despite their ability to cover wide areas
of the subject matter, multiple choice
questions fall short of assessing the
skills that makes a "total graduate,"
said Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, a former
Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Lagos, UNILAG.
"It is not sufficient. It falls short of
examining all the aspects that are very
critical to the making of a graduate.
When people finish they will be faced
with actually writing up opinions in a
very legitimate literate version. So we
need to teach them the concept of
composition; of writing," Mr. Ibidapo-
Obe, a Professor of Applied
Mathematics and Engineering Systems,
said.
"I think it is a dangerous development
as it may not be able to fully assess a
student's performance," said Professor
Akii Ibhadode of the University of
Benin, UNIBEN.
He advised that a mixture of multiple
choice questions and essay type
questions can be useful up to the
second year level but not further than
that.
The National University Commission,
NUC, spokesperson, Ibrahim Yakassai,
said universities have been directed to
desist from setting entirely multiple
choice questions. He promised that the
commission will investigate and stop
LASU from continuing with the practice.
Theses for sale
The LASU part-time programme is a
thriving auction for the sale of results
and theses, PREMIUM TIMES can reveal.
The sale of theses, we discovered, are
so widespread that lecturers now
brazenly ask students to pay into their
bank accounts and present copies of
tellers as proof of payment. Students
are required to pay as much as
N50,000 before their proposals are
supervised or up to N150,000 to have
one written for them by the lecturers
themselves.
Female students are given
considerable discounts if they
agree to sleep with lecturers.
A student, who asked not to be named,
at the Jibowu campus said he knows
lecturers who merely give part-time
students theses written by full-time
students and ask them to be reprinted
with the names of part-time students.
Another student at the Festac
campus said he paid because
everyone else was paying.
"You don't expect morality from where
immorality looms. When lecturers are
not paid you don't expect them to
behave professionally. Imagine LASU
just paid lecturers three days ago
[October 30] for salaries that have
been due for over two years. How do
you expect them to survive if they
don't engage in immoralities and
misconducts," said Mr. Alli-Balogun.
Mr. Akinshola said any lecturer who
indulges in malpractices under the
pretext of owed honorarium is just
being dishonest. He said lecturers are
paid on time. He explained that the
only lecturers who were not paid were
those from the School of
Communication because they were
ripping the university management off.
"The only honorarium that was delayed
and paid two days ago was the one for
the School of Communication. They are
the people saying all these kinds of
rubbish. We know their antecedent. We
know their stock in trade. We are not
going to bleed our eyes over 1400
students when we have 50,000
students elsewhere. These are people
who see it as a means of enriching
themselves. They are busy inflating the
amount they want to collect and the
university management in its own
wisdom said no.
"The issue was investigated by the
director and at the end of the day it
was discovered that the university has
been thoroughly ripped off. They were
forced to revert to the norm and once
they complied they were paid. That
money was processed within two
months. If they had complied two years
ago they would have been paid their
money. They were asking to be paid
the money that they never had." The
spokesperson said.
He said the school management has
already come up with plans to stop
extortions of students by lecturers but
declined to say what these plans are.
He said any student who pays for his or
her theses to be supervised or written
is doing so at his or her own risk.
An image tarnishing programme
The disorderliness of the examinations
and in fact the entire part time
programme indicates that the
university management is doing
everything to rid itself of a programme
with a long history of malpractices as
quickly as possible.
Following report of widespread
malpractices soon after the part-time
programmes were relocated from the
university's main campus in Ojo into
poorly equipped campuses across the
state, things spiralled out of control.
The programme was over taken by a
hostage mentality. The university
management, lured by the high fees
paid by the students, admitted more
students than it could handle. Because
regular lecturers couldn't cope with the
rigour of teaching regular students as
well as part time students, the
university management resorted to
employing part-time lecturers, many of
whom are secondary school teachers
without any experience in teaching at
the tertiary level. Worse, they were not
properly monitored or mentored as one
would have expected. They were left to
their own devices.
Frustrated by delayed payment of
honoraria, many of these part-time
lecturers resorted to brazen-faced
extortion of students. Results were
withheld for close to two years by some
lecturers. For instance, results of some
English Language examinations written
in June 2012 were released in October
2013. Saddened by rampant
malpractices, many full-time lecturers
washed their hands off the programme.
Worried that incessant scandals
associated with the part-time
programme was going to irreparably
tarnish the university's reputation, in
2011, the State government scraped
programme. The university
management was directed to stop
admitting new students. The last of the
current students are expected to
graduate in 2016 when the programme
would be finally rested.