GIJ Rector scraps re-sit exams

From the second semester of the next academic year, students of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) will no longer have the benefit of re-writing a paper they failed at a stipulated time scheduled by the school.

This new arrangement was revealed by the Rector of the school, Professor Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo at a students’ durbar last Friday.

Initially, there was a scheduled period on the academic calendar for the re-writing of failed papers.

But addressing the students, Prof. Kwansah-Aidoo said the practice was not a usual one in other universities running the semester system.

He further explained that the provision of a room for the re-sit examination gives room for students to be lazy during the main exams.

According to him, the move is aimed at encouraging students to work hard and pass their end-of-semester exams.

“...In my experience, nowhere in the world do we run a semester system and then have the re-sit of examination as well. It is an encouragement for people to mess up...It baffles me that anybody would go and write any exam in the hope they’ll go and repeat that exam; it is not a good idea”, he stated.

He, thus, admonished the students to aim to pass their exams at the first attempt.

“...Aim to get it out of the way once and for all and that’s it. So, management has decided that after this year, we would not have re-sit examinations again,” he said.

This new directive implies that any student who fails in a course would have to wait till the next academic year when that course is being offered before he/she can re-write the exams.

For instance, if a Level 100 student fails in any course in the second semester of the academic year, that student would have to wait for the next academic year’s second semester and register for that course again.