NUC summons VCs over discriminate grading system

Worried by irregularities in the grading system of most Nigerian Universities, the National Universities Commission (NUC) has summoned Vice Chancellors of all public and private universities to Abuja to deliberate on the issue.

They are meant to brainstorm and harmonize the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) grading system, including a uniformed Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for all certified Nigerian universities, rather than using discretional method to grade students in each discipline.

Speaking at the workshop which was held at the Commission's headquarters, the NUC Executive Secretary said it was worrisome that most universities were derailing from the original academic traditions that guaranteed high quality education in the country, especially the post independence era.

Okojie who attributed these developments to poor governance structures in most of the institutions, said individual grading systems pose technical challenges for proper grading of students, particularly inter-university credit transfer and student mobility both within and outside the country.

He said some institutions, while awarding grades in some disciplines use the 6 grade points of 5,4,3,2,1,0 for letter grades of A,B,C,D,E and F respectively. While in some cases, other disciplines removed the E grade altogether thereby having a grading system with grade points of 5,4,3,2,0 for letter grades of A,B,C,D and F respectively.

Okojie said the discriminations have incontrovertibly introduced two systems of grading within the Nigerian university system.

He said: "What is happening is that with the kind of governance structure in some institutions, you find that they lose trend about the tradition in the system itself.

"They should go back to their Senate.  Why we are having this discussion is that we also have private universities coming on board and we have assumed that because Vice Chancellors who service these private universities are from older institutions, they know some of these traditions.  It is not the case, so we are going to go through the process.

"For CGPA the maximum is 5.  University of Ibadan have been using 7. We have told them, when you are using 7 scale and the maximum is 5, how do you compare, whereas the first class honours on the 5 scale maximum is 4.5 and above. These are the issues we are concerned about.  Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife at some point was using 4.3 they went back to 4.5. We need a common platform and it is very important.

"A review would not only facilitate curriculum design within the university that would foster inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary collaboration but would also minimise duplication thereby enhancing understanding by most foreign universities too".

NUC's Director, Academic Standards, Gidado Kumo explained that the Vice Chancellors and Directors of Academic Planning were invited to Abuja to get their feedbacks or observations on how to arrive at a generally satisfactory university education policy.