NOUN addresses concerns of post graduate students over non-graduation

-Authorities at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), says the institution will not be hand-twisted into awarding unqualified certificates.

-The University further advised students to be hardworking and earn the needed requirements for qualification.

NOUN promises qualified students timely graduation.

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has made spelt out conditions students running post-graduate courses in the institution must meet before they can graduate from the school.

The clarification follows some media reports on the inability of some students to graduate despite allegedly passing all their courses.

Addressing the issue, via a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, NOUN’s Director of Media and Publicity, Ibrahim Sheme, said the University will ensure expected standards are met before issuing the University’s certificates.

His statement reads:

“The attention of NOUN has been drawn to a statement making the rounds pertaining to the inability of some postgraduate students of NOUN to graduate even after they have taken all their courses.

” The statement, titled “Call on Open University of Nigeria to suspend the ‘No 3.0 GP No Graduation Policy’ or Face Students Mass Protest”, was issued by one Tony Christian.

“The statement contains several inaccuracies and falsehood couched in wild generalisations with the aim of whipping up public resentment.

“It is disheartening that some media organisations have already rushed into publishing the allegation without making any effort to observe the minimum journalistic ethic of hearing from the other party, in this case NOUN.’’

Sheme further stated that NOUN is not an exception as its Senate and University’s academic policies are governed by guidelines and pronouncements of the National Universities Commission (NUC).

“In line with NUC’s Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) for Nigerian universities, the minimum pass mark for all postgraduate courses is a “C”, which is a “credit” and carries a grade point of 3 (in clinical/pharmaceutical sciences, it is a “B”).

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“In terms of the graduation requirements for most programmes, a student is required to have earned a minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 3.00 and a Total Credit Earned (TCE, meaning the summation of all the courses registered and PASSED) of 30 before they may be pronounced “graduated” by the university.

“For professional programmes like the MBA, the TCE is far higher. In addition to CGPA and TCE, postgraduate students are similarly expected to have fulfilled other academic requirements like passing all the courses registered, particularly the core courses.

” For example, a postgraduate student must pass the Good Study Guide (GST707/807), which is an introductory course for an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) student among others.’’

The spokesperson, quoted NOUN’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Adamu, as urging postgraduate students to work hard to meet the requirements for graduation rather than resorting to media propaganda.