Reduce Our Curriculum, Students Tell School Authority

There is a popular notion that some students of University of Calabar( UNICAL) are unserious with their studies that always result in poor performance in  examination. They bared their mind to Stanley Uchegbu, a 500 level student of Accounting why it is so and some anomaly that needed to be corrected.
Reduce Our Curriculum, Students Tells School Authority.
Examination period brings out various attitudes and.........
tales from students of University of Calabar, (UNICAL). Most of them found campus as a world of freedom. In University of Calabar, categorically there are two different kind of students found, they are the less ambitious who do not read or attend lectures but prefer to attend club parties, film show, discotheques or catch every available trip on campus, the die hard party goers, the long time sleepers, the everything in skirt chaser, they are all guilty of this charge. You only see them on campus during examination. Then secondly, we have the ones that start sleeping in class and library immediately the semester begins, they are popularly called “Hyperjckers”.

The popular notion is however, is that students don’t start studying until examination is right at the corner. This is, however true as many falls into this category, they are not serious with their studies until it’s a week or two to examination. When examination gets closer, the library and lecture halls become eyesores, hardly would one find breathing space as the whole place would be filled to capacity with students who failed to prepare early enough for their examination.
Some students who spoke to Campus life in anonymity said, some lecturers contribute to the problem as they do not start lecturing until the last two or three weeks to the examination. A student in the Faculty of Allied Medical Science said their lecturers at times photocopy piles of materials with diagrams for them to study within two weeks to the exams adding on top of the one they have taught. In this scenario, students would be left with no choice but to burn their mid-night candle in order to get acquainted with the materials been given to them.

He stated that some lecturers in their examination question twist their question in such a way one will hardly comprehend where they are driving at. If you doubt what am saying that students don’t burn our mid night candle come to main campus or pavilion 2 and 3 and see for yourself, he said. Students read aggressively as if their life depends on it.

A female student who identifies herself as Tracy from Radiography department said, after the August 2011 free-for-all, semester is ridiculously short and students are stampede with neck breaking academic load. This at times results to intense and reckless cramming. You know when one cram and enter examination hall, one hardly remember a trifle of what was written so masterful during the examination. I will supplicate with the school authority to look into our curriculum and see if they can reduce it because our work load is cumbersome. We can no longer bear it, she fumed.
A 500 level student of Radiography who pleaded anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said in grievance that last week majority of the students were restricted from writing examination just because they didn’t submit their class admit card, our lecturer told us to wait outside. We waited for exactly one hour thirty minutes, he later called us in and demanded that each an every one of us should pay N1000 before he could allow us to write, we complied in other to write the exam. I didn’t spend up to an hour; he ordered us to submit our script. Is this not wickedness, he asked. It is absolutely inhumanity, he added.
Students from Faculty of Management Sciences who spoke to Campus life said, “there is no reason to read at the beginning of the semester since much has not been taught”. At this period, there is neither test nor examination to spur them to read. Thus they can afford to relax and enjoy themselves. Other students from different faculty argue that at the middle of the semester, most of the time is spent on attending lectures and stuffing the internet sourcing for materials to carry out an assignment or term paper given to them by their lecturers. Many attributed this reason as to why they do not have time for studies at the middle of the semester.
A 500 level student of Faculty of Law who preferred to be called Jessy said that in other universities like University of Benin and many others, students are given one month interval to prepare for their semester exams but here in Unical we are only given two weeks at times one to prepare. He condemned the act saying that it is absolutely wrong. He continued; “During my 4th year, we wrote one course that all the students in my class performed below expectation, we failed the course woefully and students attributed the failure to inadequate preparation because they are only given one week to prepare for that course. Our dean pitied us and ordered that the exam should be retaken.
He solicited with the management to always give them time to prepare for exams like other university always do. Could you imagine that now we are writing exams some lecturers are still holding classes not only in law but in other faculties, he fumed.
Another student from Faculty of Social Science, department of Political Science when confronted by Campus life pleaded that her name shouldn’t be on print said that they are passing through hell in their department. She said, “I no longer understand what is going on in our department”. Our department is the worse in Unical. She pleaded with the School authority to run to their aids and deem its search light in their department and remove some bad eggs.
Jackson as popularly known in night class said students should be blamed for not reading at the beginning of the semester rather they choose to attend club parties. Some of them are very lazy; they prefer to pile up their work until examination period. What a student suppose to learn for three months, they race against time to learn in two weeks and do a crash and cram syndrome during examination. Students of nowadays no longer read their books, this has reflected in Jamb result released recently.
He advised the students to inculcate and imbibe the habit of reading not just to pass examination but to be well equipped in their various discipline so that after graduation they can be able to rub shoulders with their counter parts across the globe.