Students at the Ghana Institute of Journalism are not happy with a decision by school authorities to hold this second semester’s examinations online.
The students believe that this would cause a lot of inconvenience to students, especially those who are already struggling to adjust to online academic activities.
On Wednesday, management of the school released a communique expressing its decision to hold the end of semester examination online.
The decision is a result of the closure of the school in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as directed by President Akufo-Addo.
School authorities, in the communique, stated the guidelines for the conduct of the exams online as well as provided a revised academic timetable.
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But students are protesting the move, explaining that some of the challenges with the online learning programme have not been resolved and that some of their colleagues are already in a disadvantaged position.
“Management of the school has not fully resolved the challenge about the data cost we have to incur because of online learning. They have entered into a partnership with AirtelTigo for free internet access to some learning platforms but those of us using other networks, we have been left out. Even in Accra there are places with unstable internet connection. The field is not level for all students regarding the conduct of online academic activities,” one Elizabeth told UniversNews
Another student, Richard, added that “Let’s imagine that you are in the middle of an online examination then your device goes off or you run out of data, or there’s even a power cut, you definitely will be at lost but the lecturer won’t know this and may think you are just looking for an excuse. Already, we have not fully adjusted to the online way of undertaking academic activities and now, they are adding examination to it. This is just not right”
The school has revised its academic calendar, giving students a three-week period, from May 1 – May 24, for revision.
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They explain that the long period is to “enable students to clarify any issues and allow those who may have missed some online activities to catch up.”
School management has scheduled the end of semester examination to take place between Monday 25th May and Friday, 12th June
GIJ Management reviews examination grading system
School authorities have stated that 25% of students’ overall final course score will now be determined by continuous assessment with Interim Assessment constituting 15%.
The remaining 60% will be from the end of semester examination.
Initially, 40% of the overall course score was from the Interim Assessment and the remaining 60% from End of Semester Examination.
The school says that this revision is only going to be used in the conduct this second semester of the 2019/2020 academic year.
Story by: Jeffrey Nyabor
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