Students' Congress: Exploitation On Our Campus II Responses

Dear Congress members,  it won't come as a surprise to you about the reports in the news this week that a lecturer from Ibadan Polytechnic was dismissed over allegations of extortion and withholding of examination scripts of his students.

This coincided with the topic: How Lecturers Extort Students For Mark, deliberated upon last week and this indicates the extent this act has damaged the quality of education in Nigeria.

The lecturer was said to have received a bribe of an undisclosed amount of money from one of his students for the purpose of 'boosting' the said student’s mark in his course.

It was so bad that he was said to have withheld the answer scripts of 18 students, including the one that offered him bribe.

One of the Congress members, Comrade Idris Kasumu (PGD Student, NIJ) said it is quite unfortunate that exploitation of students by lecturers has eaten deep into our educational system. "I have have heard stories how female students are made to 'open their legs' for lecturer just to pass a course," he added.

Comrade Kasumu cited a case of a Professor of Education at Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) in the 90s, who was dismissed by the authorities of the school for sleeping with female students, even in his office.

The Post Graduate student of the Nigeria Institute of Journalism said to curb this unbecoming act, an independent disciplinary body should be set-up by government, where students can report such lecturers.

Another Congress member, Comrade Oladipupo Segun (Lagos State University, LASU) however said lecturers exploit unserious students. “If you take studies serious, no lecturer will fail you or demand for money,” he said.

The Mass Communication student added that, "we have to be diligent so that no lecturer will exploit us unnecessarily".

 But Comrade Hafeez Ahmod, who do not want the name of his school mentioned, did not agree with this point.

He  said: “One may want to argue that serious minded students are not always being exploited by our hungry lecturers, but the fact remains that some of these lecturers don’t  care how intelligent you are, it is how much money you have that determines how far you can go.”

Comrade Ahmod gavethe instance of an Institute in Apapa, Lagos, where lecturers are more particular about students’ phone numbers, not because they care  about the students, but for them to bargain on phone even when the students perform well in their examinations.

•You can still send your views to the above phone number and email address above. It is our belief that the policy makers in the education sector will do something about this ugly act. Your views count a lot and together, we will sanitise the education sector.