Article: THE FIRST CLASS STUDENT
The words above were what I read from an article published by savethestudent.org. What drew my attention most in this article was the line which read: most students claim to be good students, they manage to make the grades but their brains are as poor as the poorest thing you can ever think of on earth.
So I also had admission to study in the KNUST. This occurred some two years ago, I recall. My dream of going to a tertiary school in Ghana at least, came true. Believe you me that time, when the list of the names of successful applicants dropped, I was so happy. I was full as though I ate some five balls of banku with okro stew embellished with salted tilapia and chicken. I was very happy, my name appeared amongst about seventy six students to study BSc. Quantity Surveying & Construction Economics for the next four years. All necessary preparations were made and I saw myself live in the university community. Be informed that I am proudly a Continental, member of the largest male hall in West Africa, The Unity Hall!
I had a preconceived notion that it was going to be all fun on campus. I was made to believe so by some good folks I had links with on campus. But things were rather contrary. On campus, the battle was fierce, very competitive and like my mom will put it, it was a situation of "nɛ mɛ yegoa go maye", which means, "If you won't go give me way to go". In fact I envisaged that things were going to be very tough, after my first three lectures. But hey, I don't blame my friends because what they said was actually true, the only difference is that they weren't in my department when they were in school. I can bet my last coin that the most time demanding and stressful department on the campus of KNUST will forever remain the Department of BUILDING TECHNOLOGY. If you disagree with me, humbly divert your programme now and just reapply to that department. I wish u luck, and I'll be very glad if you're offered the opportunity.
I used about two weeks in my first month on campus to informally orient myself. I went on a familiarization tour. By the end of the first week I got to know so many places on campus. In the second week, per my time frame for this agenda, a good friend of mine from our fiercest rivalry hall, the University Hall, Katanga, joined me so I can know more. He was my immediate senior. I wasn't surprised one bit when we were given our Students' Guide. I was conversant with the places on campus captured in that document. What was of much relevant were the "do's and don'ts" for students. And just after our college formal orientation, I reignited my passion and psyched myself for nothing but success. I dismissed the fear of the unknown in me. Not to sound arrogant here, but I must add that I was in a state of good standing. All was set for us to begin the marathon of "first degree", having gone for our first semester time table.
Anytime my mind is less busy, the most immediate phrase that keeps resounding in my ear is, “the first class student ". One, getting to the university was once upon a time something I've never dreamt of, due to certain reasons best known to me. You may want to guess them, but kindly rule out any idea of me been academically unfit. Secondly, I thought the university was meant for some much chosen people which I never counted myself as been part. So at school, whatever I do was mainly aimed at getting a first class status as a student. At the KNUST, one is awarded first class if his/her Cumulative Weighted Average (CWA) exceeds 69.99. This wasn't too difficult to attain especially after we've been advised as "freshmen", by our senior colleagues, that most of the exams here are purely extracted from past questions. I didn't believe this at first. Lo and behold, during my first semester exam I wrote a paper which was technically the same as the one I practised in my room about 48 hours before the paper. I was taken aback and thought it was going to be only this course that this had happened. I shrugged when again, lying on the exams table before me was yet another set of familiar questions to be written by me. I watched back to see if I was the only person to notice this. Certainly not. I smiled to myself and quietly, I answered the questions to the best of my knowledge. I asked myself whether this was the standard and modus operandi at the university. This am sure started long ago and it's still going on now. The situation was this. “Prepare very well for exams “so that you don't fail, that’s a genuine statement, but there's a flaw in it. You'll soon get to know from this piece. Most of our lecturers instead of hammering on how to survive in the job market after school, only speak on passing his/her exams and care very little about how pragmatic we can become after school having acquired some level of training. There's this very popular phenomenon. "Chew and pour", which means, study a course material without even gaining it's objectives, pass it's exams and later, be unable to recall even a sentence from that same course. What a hopeless situation! Unfortunately, this had almost always been the case at the university, shamefully endorsed by some of our lecturers. The good news is some very good lecturers frown upon this "chew and pour" methodology of passing exams. They instead test our understanding of the various courses taken every semester. This is very encouraging and has always been my guide for every course I'm taking in school. With the practice of this "chew and pour", we're likely to produce fake first class students and don't be surprised about this. That's why nowadays, most of our schools churn out bunch of incompetent graduates who fancy joining the so called “Unemployed Graduate Association of Ghana ".
At this juncture, please allow me to say this. The standard of training we acquire even at the tertiary level of our education is one that is comparatively poor. We're trained just to pass exams and even forget how we managed to answer those seemingly difficult examination questions, sometimes within a week or two after writing the exams. It's a very pathetic situation that we the university students are not been developed to become problem solvers in our societies. But do we blame ourselves? Our educational system in itself needs serious revamp so as to meet our current and future needs as a nation. This must begin from the primary level, I suggest. Just recently, l was very sad to read a news item on myjoyonline.com, titled, “61% OF TEACHERS IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN GHANA UNQUALIFIED - SURVEY". My fear and worry escalated when at my hostel we were hit by a water supply difficulty. I later got to know that the pump that pumps the water from the well into the hotel's cistern tanks were spoilt beyond repairs. Fine. "It must be replaced and not to be repaired", says our hostel manageress. Eventually, a new set of pump was purchased awaiting fixing. Mind you we've about six "strong" electrical engineering students at the hostel as well as about two mechanical engineering students. It was again, very pathetic that these aspiring engineers in Ghana at my hostel together with the rest of us had no water for close to five days. As to how we managed to get water, only God can testify to the stress we went through. They couldn't even fix the electrically powered pump so as to avert what we went through for that five good days! Had it been a question on say, Power Electronics or Thermo Dynamics or better still Fluid Mechanics, I bet you, these guys would stay awake throughout the night just to perfectly produce a five page solution to the question given them. Why can't this be translated into fixing the problem we faced at my hostel? It was a certain technician who came to rescue us from this "water crisis". Again, do we blame these students?
My piece is not to undermine the efforts and hard work of our school authorities in Ghana. There still exist some elements amongst our lecturers who make studies more practical and geared towards tackling the pertinent issues facing Ghana, head on. I only seek to agree with what Suli Breaks once said: Education is about inspiring one's mind not just filling our heads. Many a time I wonder if there ever will be a turning point for our educational system. Well, I'll never stop praying for my country especially our leaders who must, I think first all, make serious changes in the teaching approach at the university level and then secondly must put in place very reliable and efficient check systems in the quest of realizing the best standards of training.
So now, my main question is, who's a first class student? Am sure that by now, we aren't oblivious about the corrupt nature of some of the examination management/authorities put in place at our various tertiary institutions. It's either "a failing student" going to see an exams officer with a fat brown envelope for a favour or an average student who's a favourite of a teaching assistant or even the lecturer himself. In the first case above, the student may seek to avoid a situation of reapting a class or a whole year also. While in the latter case, the favourite average student automatically becomes a first class student. To be fair to these somewhat corrupt exams officers, let me quickly add that students' marks are sometimes favourably inflated either by the lecturer or their teaching assistants before the final collation for grading at the exams officer level. Please, all corrupt acts, whether big or small are corruption. It's a camouflage to say that but why, we use only students' index numbers by way of identifying student's exams scripts and so on! Yes. That's true. But don't forget that personal and very close relationships exist between some students and lecturers or between some students and various teaching assistants in various universities across the country. The above assertion highly betrays the use of index numbers only, during examinations of all kinds. With just a phone call or text messaging (it’s so easy to get a lecturer's personal contact nowadays), I can give out my full name and index number to a teaching assistant or even a lecturer. No one should tell me this seldom occurs. Let's be realistic please. If a colleague student can call a lecturer right under my nose for an important info, why can't the former do same when tempted to ask for a favour from the latter, "secretly". All am trying to say is that, some first class students are not truly first class students.
They say university. Good. Intuitively, this should be a place where people are been trained and developed in different fields, come out to fix Ghana's teething problems. But what do we see? Some graduates from our tertiary schools rather add up to Ghana's problems. A classic example is the escalating number of unemployed graduates which has become an albatross on the neck of the Ghanaian poor economy, with others, aiming high to join terrorist groups. I believe in the power of entrepreneurship, create your own jobs and by doing this the graduate unemployment figures will begin to decrease. I also believe that there are jobs, at least in the private sector. The challenge here is that most firms seek to employ people with competence. The Ghanaian industry has become very competitive. Employers seek to engage human resources who can add up to optimum production and huge turnovers. It's surprising that the relationship between the first class student (even after graduation) and his ability to fit in the job market is counterintuitive! Most of them just don't fit and can't do the jobs they claim they can do. That's a first class student on paper for you. There are a handful of very skilful and competent young graduate who really fit the contemporary job market. They might not necessarily be first class students. They're able to achieve this feat through hard work instead of relying on favours from a school authority. They make more research, digress a little bit from their substantive programs of study just to make sure they become versatile and open minded in and after school. These are the employable candidates, for me.
It will surprise you to know that the level of intelligence some first class students display is very funny. Funny enough to tell you that money speaks. Funny enough to hint you that, o yes, there's power in been close to a lecturer or a teaching assistant. I once asked a very good friend of mine who as at now is still walking about as a "first classer" in my department, "what role do you want to play in Ghana's construction industry in the next five years? “ To my dismay, “I don't really know", was the person's reply to me. There are a number of very key and important issues that flaw these so called first class students parading about in our tertiary institutions.
For me, a first class student is one who has the ability to think very critically. Someone who can do something even outside his scope of study. Someone who's innovative. Someone who has the power of entrepreneurship and a person who is much disciplined.
I believe that, whilst still in school, as students, we can do more than just becoming a first class student on paper, on campus. The next time you meet a non-first class student, don’t undermine him or her because the power and knowledge she or he possess will surprise you. But for some reasons that person couldn't appear on that paper containing the list of names of first class students for a particular academic year. I do believe also that our educational system must be revised to become more practical. And I'll continue to pray to God on behalf of our leaders in Ghana for vision and foresight. For now, all I can actually boast of about formal education in Ghana is this: it teaches us to live in peace with other people from different ethnic groups. This I can testify because I come from the south, and Ebenezer Ayidana, a course mate, the best amongst the first class students in my faculty , who hails from the north, is my roommate in school. We live as brothers and it will surprise you to find out from our friends that we aren't.
By way of ending, this is my an opinion. I don't seek to undermine any first class holder out there, neither do I seek to paint a gloomy picture that it's not important to become a first class student. But my concern is, about six out of ten first class acclaimed students will often forget certain crucial principles they've learnt previously in their area of study, before leaving school. We can do better. I know there are real and genuine once around, because am one of you.
God bless you, Peace.
by Kumi Mark-Nelson
©2015/2016, KNUST.
0543666881/0501425583
marknelsonkumi@gmail.com
