It is heart warming to most employers of labour to have graduates with good degrees on their payrolls. It is now a common thing to see vacancies carry clauses like " a minimum of second class upper". Companies believe that this gives them a competitive advantage against their competitors which would translate into greater profit margin.
Whether this is true remains to be seen; because how well a company performs is a function of so many factors and not solely on its human capacity. The craze for good degrees has impacted negatively on students; as most of them have now made it a do-or-die affair. Some of the students cheat while some pay their way through the universities.
Placing so much emphasis on paper qualification has often times proved that it is not the best measure of intelligence. Human Resource experts have it on record that employees who are average academically often do better than those who were extremely good in school when it gets to the work place.
The issue of class of degree has always been a recurring decimal in the labour market and it determines what job someone gets. The award of degrees ranges from first class, second class upper, second class lower, to third class, and pass and with corresponding Cumulative GradePoint Average (CGPA) of 4.5, 3.5, 2.4,and 1.5 respectively.
Oil companies, Banks and Telecom companies are fat-paying industries and consequently experience large number of applicants whenever they announced vacancies. The only way to trim the number of applicants to size is to introduce a certain class of degree as minimum qualification.
Creation of jobs would downplay the class-of-degree barrier; if there are enough jobs for graduates, employers would be left with no choice than to lower the bar for job seekers. My advice for organisations is to employ another/additional selection methods like apptitude test and oral interview; this would put to test the genuiness of paper qualifications.
However, if bars are not raised by the employing public, it wont give the students impetus to do well in their studies. The status quo gingers students to concentrate on their studies and drives them to excel in their chosen profession.
In my next blog, we shall be celebrating excellence, a graduate of Electrical Engineering with first class honours. You cannot affaord to miss it, keep following.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
POST UME HAS COME TO STAY
The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board is responsible to conduct exams for prospective undergraduates in the Nigerian universities. This authority is being challenged by the Universities, as it is often the case with government parastatals, one trying to outwit the other.
Meeting universities' cut-off marks does not guarantee an outright admission, one has to go through the hurdle of a post-matriculation exam being conducted by the universities. This action raises a lot of questions on the continous existence of JAMB. They have argued that students cheat in JAMB exams and most of them who score high marks do not eventually do well upon admission. A missing link there you would say!
JAMB on the other hand, has argued that its authorities are being challenged and sees no reason for post-UME exams. Expectedly, the people in JAMB put up a bold face " we have instituted effective security to prevent examination malpractices in our examinations".
My take on this controversy: JAMB has not been able to prove beyond doubts that its exams are immune to leaking and other malpractices; and as pointed out by the universities, one really would wonder at the academic performance of students with best scores in JAMB. I am sure the universities have the statistics to show that they (students) do not eventually do well in their chosen course of study. Introducing post-matriculation exams is a welcome development after all.
The vacancies existing in the universities in comparison to the the number of students seeking admission is far from proportionate and for this, the exercise (post UME) is another means of streamlining the number of intakes.
The post UME exams has however been an exercise to extort money from the unsuspecting public. Each student is made to pay as much as Five thousand Naira (N5,000), this is extortion in its strongest term! If they feel the students are to be re-examined, it should not be at the students' expense.
The universities should also be able to prove with verifiable figures that its Post UME is after all justified and also not a case of a pot calling the kettle black (I do not know if the VC admission list still exists).
The present scenario now takes us to the question, what happens to JAMB? Agreed, its existence is being threatened by the universities if not the NUC (Nigeria Universities Commission). I will give some probable answers:
One, the act (law) establishing JAMB be tinkered with; clauses like 'on meeting the cut-off marks of the universities, the prospective undergraduates would have to write another test as deemed fit by the university where admission is being sought'.
Two, JAMB authorities should put in place a mechanism to checkmate malpractices of any sort; this will douse the lack-of-confidence posture being touted by the universities and consequently restores its fading image.
On a final note, I do welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can get out of this cul-de-sac. My next blog is going to be on 'classification of degrees in Nigerian universities'. I hope you will follow me.
Meeting universities' cut-off marks does not guarantee an outright admission, one has to go through the hurdle of a post-matriculation exam being conducted by the universities. This action raises a lot of questions on the continous existence of JAMB. They have argued that students cheat in JAMB exams and most of them who score high marks do not eventually do well upon admission. A missing link there you would say!
JAMB on the other hand, has argued that its authorities are being challenged and sees no reason for post-UME exams. Expectedly, the people in JAMB put up a bold face " we have instituted effective security to prevent examination malpractices in our examinations".
My take on this controversy: JAMB has not been able to prove beyond doubts that its exams are immune to leaking and other malpractices; and as pointed out by the universities, one really would wonder at the academic performance of students with best scores in JAMB. I am sure the universities have the statistics to show that they (students) do not eventually do well in their chosen course of study. Introducing post-matriculation exams is a welcome development after all.
The vacancies existing in the universities in comparison to the the number of students seeking admission is far from proportionate and for this, the exercise (post UME) is another means of streamlining the number of intakes.
The post UME exams has however been an exercise to extort money from the unsuspecting public. Each student is made to pay as much as Five thousand Naira (N5,000), this is extortion in its strongest term! If they feel the students are to be re-examined, it should not be at the students' expense.
The universities should also be able to prove with verifiable figures that its Post UME is after all justified and also not a case of a pot calling the kettle black (I do not know if the VC admission list still exists).
The present scenario now takes us to the question, what happens to JAMB? Agreed, its existence is being threatened by the universities if not the NUC (Nigeria Universities Commission). I will give some probable answers:
One, the act (law) establishing JAMB be tinkered with; clauses like 'on meeting the cut-off marks of the universities, the prospective undergraduates would have to write another test as deemed fit by the university where admission is being sought'.
Two, JAMB authorities should put in place a mechanism to checkmate malpractices of any sort; this will douse the lack-of-confidence posture being touted by the universities and consequently restores its fading image.
On a final note, I do welcome your comments and suggestions on how we can get out of this cul-de-sac. My next blog is going to be on 'classification of degrees in Nigerian universities'. I hope you will follow me.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
WELCOME TO BAMBOOZLE
Coming on board at a time when there are so many blogs to visit and to read from might be frustrating but the zeal to write and more importantly, education which will be the crux of the blog, is too important not to come up with the blog.
Education across Nigeria will dominate the site and we shall be dwelling on areas of improving the sector. It will cut across all the strata, the system of teaching and its mode, accessibility and comparison of education with other countries of the world.
We shall interview people who are saddled with the responsibility of fixing the educational system in Nigeria, photos are also going to be uploaded and more importantly, your incisive comments and ideas are welcome to better the system of learning in Nigeria.
A very warm welcome to BAMBOOZLE.
Education across Nigeria will dominate the site and we shall be dwelling on areas of improving the sector. It will cut across all the strata, the system of teaching and its mode, accessibility and comparison of education with other countries of the world.
We shall interview people who are saddled with the responsibility of fixing the educational system in Nigeria, photos are also going to be uploaded and more importantly, your incisive comments and ideas are welcome to better the system of learning in Nigeria.
A very warm welcome to BAMBOOZLE.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)