A LETTER TO THE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT

FUNAAB ICT: E-exam/test dilemma

There is no doubt that the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta is one of the few schools setting the pace when it comes to the use of ICT in this present day.
Students can do a lot of things online with the schools portal, like checking of results, downloading of some lecture notes etc. We also write exams and test, using computers to make writing/marking of examinations faster especially for the large number of students the school has in its care. It's also laudable to note that we can also pay our school fees online without going through the STRESS of filling deposit slips and beating the heavy queue at the banking halls. Now, speaking of STRESS, I want to draw the attention of the school's management to an area where students are experiencing STRESS.

So it happened that on the 12th of may 2016, all 200level students from the College of Management sciences were to write a test at the 500 seater laboratory by 11am, just about the same time FWM (Forestry and Wild life management) test was to hold(a test for about four colleges) around 8am and some other students had make-up test that same day. The students queued at the supposed test venue in the sun for a long time, pushing, pulling and "shunting",so as to get into the hall and write the test, but the usual thing happened. The server went down,those who were already inside couldn't attempt the test,those outside waited around,spending precious time being idle as the server was down for hours. Day turned into evening and still a large number of people were yet to write their test, even when some did write their test, the computers refused to take in their entries.  More time was required so as to clear each student of their entries by checking in the server room, at the end of it all, some colmas students and those who came for their make-up test were told to come back the next day while FWM students were able to finish their test between the hours of 7pm-8pm.

Now you would agree with me that every student who came for their test that day would have left with bitterness and resentment in them for the school after a STRESS-filled-wasted-day and to think that every funaabite payed #2000 for ICT development fee. I wonder where the money goes to when things like this happen on a regular basis! I wonder why there couldn't have been proper organization of the time each college should start and finish their test! I wonder if the school management have plans for another computer laboratory because acts like this annuls the usefulness of the other computer laboratory the school has. Last year, 100level engineering students had a string of connected failures in their GNS103 examination. The same examination that has the easiest questions the GNS department has to test students. Question is: why would engineering students have a carry over in a course that easy? We poked and the answers we got was that it was a default problem from ICT, default in the sense that it affected the set (2013/2014) before this recent occurrence and even the set before then. So its logical to say its a default settings in the server at ICT to fail this students. I then wonder if the management knows about the troubles students come to face with whenever using the ICT! I hope very soon we would stop bothering about issues that can be fixed and move ahead to greater heights as it is the motto of our glorified Federal institution of learning.
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This is our story,you too can share yours and maybe someday,this would spark a turnaround of events in Funaab's ICT.