Graduation Policy: Open University Post graduate students threaten mass protest

Post graduate students of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) have threatened to stage a mass protest if the institution refused to suspend its ‘No 3.0 GP, no graduation policy’. The students called on the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu and the Executive Secretary, National University Commission (NUC), Abdulrashid Abubakar, to direct management […]

Post graduate students of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) have threatened to stage a mass protest if the institution refused to suspend its ‘No 3.0 GP, no graduation policy’.

The students called on the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu and the Executive Secretary, National University Commission (NUC), Abdulrashid Abubakar, to direct management of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) to suspend the "no 3.0 GP, no graduation policy".

The university however said its policy was in line with the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) of the NUC for Nigerian universities.

The concerned post graduate students made their position known in a press statement titled: “Call on Open University of Nigeria to suspend the ‘No 3.0 GP, No Graduation Policy’ or face students’ mass protest,” which was signed by Tony Christian and made available to Daily Trust, in Abuja, Monday.

They called on the Vice Chancellor and Senate of NOUN to commence the process of releasing results and certificate of the affected students to enable them pursue their academic future with institutions of their choice.

According to the statement, the institution should be made to explain why it chose to conceal the policy from students at the point of admission, only to impose it on them at the point of graduation.

The statement reads: “While it is a common knowledge that the policy is nothing but a deliberate scheme by NOUN to up its IGR- it was however not surprising that all students affected by the policy were deliberately made to fail some courses in a bid by the institution to generate funds from payments arising from re-registration of carried- over courses.

“Yet, after writing these carried-over courses, with no outstanding course and scored at least 2.5 GP, it is baffling that NOUN has refused to graduate these students on the ground that they did not meet its 3.0 GP benchmark.

“In the history of Nigeria’s education system, it is unheard of that the certificate of a post graduate student was being withheld on account of the status of his or her GP.  The standard rule is either a student passed or failed. Whichever way it goes; it is within the right of the student to be issued either certificate of graduation or attendance. No law or policy of any university is empowered to do otherwise.

“It is therefore alien that a post graduate student who has no outstanding course and scored at least 2.5 GP, which is by universal grading (second class lower),is denied certificate of graduation because he or she did not score up to 3.0 GP-which is still within the range of second class lower,” the statement added.

But reacting to the story, the Director, Media and Publicity of NOUN, Malam Ibrahim Sheme, said: "In line with NUC’s Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for Nigerian universities (which is a policy document in the public domain that can easily be accessed by everyone), the minimum pass mark for ALL postgraduate courses is a “C”, which is a “credit” and carries a grade point of 3 (in clinical/pharmaceutical sciences, it is a “B”). In terms of the graduation requirements for most programmes, a student is required to have earned a minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.00 and a Total Credit Earned (TCE, meaning the summation of all the courses registered and PASSED) of 30 before they may be pronounced “graduated” by the university. 

“For professional programmes like the MBA, the TCE is far higher. In addition to CGPA and TCE, postgraduate students are similarly expected to have fulfilled other academic requirements like passing all the courses registered, particularly the core courses. For example, a postgraduate student must pass the Good Study Guide (GST707/807), which is an introductory course for an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) student, etc. A postgraduate student cannot, for example, fail a core course like Research Project, Research Methodology, etc., and expect to be graduated even though he/she has met the minimum TCE and CGPA for the programme.

“While the mantra of the current University Management is to make NOUN “more NUC than NUC” itself, the University is not unaware of the fact that in the formative years of the university, some of our operations were not properly aligned with the regulatory dictates of the NUC and as such some of the postgraduate students may not have been properly informed on the degree awarding rules for the programmes they applied for. We are mindful of this and steps are being taken to, first, adequately sensitise the students who were given admission with effect from the 2016 1st semester on the need to fully comply with the NUC BMAS and, secondly, to come up with a justifiable modality that would ensure that older students who are caught up in the system as a result of their inability to meet the minimum graduation requirements are accommodated.

“Let us be clear that the latter would be done bearing in mind the need to NOT water down the quality of the degrees and certificates of the National Open University of Nigeria.

“In this regard the Board of the School of Postgraduate Studies is in the process of re-examining the cases of students in this category on a case-by-case basis, and its final decision would be deliberated on the floor of the University Senate.

“Let me reiterate that as a legitimate institution established by law, the National Open University of Nigeria would not succumb to blackmail from any quarters nor would its Management be arm-twisted to issue questionable degrees that are contrary to our vision and mission statements.

“The Vice- Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, urges all existing postgraduate students to be mindful of the graduation requirements for their programmes and work hard to ensure that they meet these requirements rather than resulting to media blackmail and propaganda. The University would not succumb to fallacies and sponsored news publications aimed at arm-twisting the Management to take hasty decisions that would undermine the integrity of NOUN as a respectable, reputable institution of learning."