MISSING MARKS IN KENYATTA UNIVERSITY-Someone Must Intervene

This has been a challenge for quite some time. I have always heard people talk about it and never believed the intensity of the issue until I recently befell a victim. It is irritating, really irritating for one to undergo such a trauma, especially after you are through with campus. Imagine someone completed his or her studies and went home at Bungoma. The exams are released, the marks are missing online. Are you aware how long this lady or gent will suffer before the marks are fixed? A million trips to and from the university are not enough to find the solution. I heard that others missed lifetime employment opportunities and even graduating because of careless mistakes of those responsible for taking care of examination booklets. We performed our responsibility of doing our exams, who has the responsibility of taking care of the marks?

                                                                     

I think there is a system breakdown somewhere. Lecturers do not want to cooperate and sympathize with poor students who have spent on roads to and from the university everyday to come and find their missing marks. I have witnessed people shading bitter tears of frustration because of this, and no administrator has ever been able to address the issue. What angers me more is the promises that are usually given by the lecturers when you meet them, “just go back home, tomorrow you will find your marks.” Seven days down the line, no marks. And you have to spend additional KSH.3,000 to come and beg uncooperative lecturers to search for your missing marks.  

Sometimes people repeat the units to get new marks when tired of begging for the missing marks. Frustrating enough, their earlier booklets are rotting somewhere in the store. In some cases, after spending months and years in the corridors of the departments, you may get your marks. The question is: where do these marks come from? Where have they been for all this time? Why did whoever tracing them now not do it at the time of entering the marks? The conclusion here is that even those who end up repeating the units, their marks are rotting somewhere in the store. The only problem is that someone is lazy and does not want to assume the responsibility of locating the exam booklets wherever he or she kept them.

I agree that mistakes belong to human beings. When making entries, a human being can jump a name or put aside a booklet before entering the marks into the system. This, coupled with the ‘I do not know which’ law requires the booklet to be strictly hidden from candidates after marking, is really concealing millions of inefficiencies in the examination process. Examiners fail to be careful because they know that candidates will never discover these inefficiencies. This is Africa, I think we need to collectively call for the revision of this “law” and avail the booklets to the students after marking. Even if it means making additional payments, it is better than the suffering people undergo with missing marks and wrong grades.

This kind of victimization need to be addressed and a long-term solution be found. If you want to know what I am talking about, tour the corridors of the departments in our university. Angry students looking for their missing marks can slab you because of frustrations if you approach to them carelessly. Consider the time we are wasting, which could have been put into productive economic activities. Consider the money we are spending everyday to and from the university, which could have been invested elsewhere for productive gains. Consider the pains that people undergo, which could transform to trauma. Then let the administration take countermeasures to mitigate the problem of missing marks to allow students and those awaiting graduation have peace of mind.