UniMaid e-exams challenges

University of Maiduguri has brought back the reading culture among students using the Electronic examination which is also known as E-examination. This is the type of examination that uses computer or desk top to answer question rather than using pen and paper. E-examination has unique questions which are generated for each candidate by randomly selected […]

University of Maiduguri has brought back the reading culture among students using the Electronic examination which is also known as E-examination. This is the type of examination that uses computer or desk top to answer question rather than using pen and paper.

E-examination has unique questions which are generated for each candidate by randomly selected and orderly questions and alternative answers with unique timing depending on the number of questions a candidate is supposed to attempt.

The E-examination was introduced by the university vice chancellor Professor Ibrahim Abubakar Njodi in 2010 purposely to eliminate examination malpractices among students. But however, it was later found out that the E-examination makes students to be lazy about their studies due to the constant repetition of questions by some lecturers.

Students of the University are found with the habit of buying past question and answer booklets from various shops in the University campus and memorise the answers instead of concentrating on their books because the E-examination Is designed in such a way that TRUE OR FALSE, YES OR NO as well as OBJECTIVES and sometimes filled in the blank space methods are used.

The second semester examinations of 2016/2017 session however appeared different because questions were set and tasked the students to not only read but only read harder and once again the reading habit is facing set back among students of Nigerian universities which University of Maiduguri is one of them. Although the E-examination is not a bad idea, students are more serious with their books because no student wants to fail his/her examinations.

The institution should therefore devise a means through which the E-examination questions will be totally overhauled and re-structured such that students will be forced to engage in reading before they pass the examination. Doing so will go a long way in changing the way things are going.

Dahira Faruq Jauro, Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri.