"May all your enemies be ignored like UDUS resumption date"
-Danfodites
The above quote is the latest trend amongst UDUS Students on the cyberspace and depicts how recalcitrant the students of the school are when it comes to resuming after breaks. It has been two days ago since the second semester has commenced in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. Only few departments were able to release the lectures timetable at the appropriate time and this has even enhanced the lethargy of students in resuming early.
It sounds somehow contradictory that the students have their own definition of resumption apart from the University management. What is resumption to students if not flagging-off of lecture? It's part of students habit not to resume until the lecture kicks-off because to them that's what they understand by resumption.
We have earlier tipped-off the University management ironically on the intention of students not to resume until after Sallah hoping that the University will take some necessarily steps to spur students to resume at the appropriate time, but it's with dismay seeing that some lecture halls were still locked and timetables were not released.
We are not trying to justify the non-challant attitudinal lethargy of students in resuming but there are ways in which students can be spurred to resume early.
One of the most scary things for students is lecture attendance, if a lecture starts with only five students in the class and the attendance is strictly taken, there is every tendency that the students will be left with no other options but rush-in with high influx in the next few days.
The benchmark of 75% attendance as to be taken with sober hand and any students would fail to meet up should be at their own risk. This will enable the students to take the resumption date seriously.
We are not advocating for holistic strictness from the University management but our major point is that the second semester is shorter and faster than first semester, due to the truncation as a result of ASUU strike; this session's academic calendar was streamlined and thereby making the lecture period short.
We only have 12 weeks for lectures, If the lectures fail to start at the right time, it's either the Management shifts the exam period or students dabble into exam without receiving adequate lectures which the two sides do not favour the students as the former might lead to academic devastation and the latter might lead to mass failure.
A cursory trip back to what happened in the 2017/18 second semester, in fact the GST timetable which used to take long time was released a week to the resumption likewise other departmental timetables. In fact the lectures commenced immediately the school resumed and after few days, Students were observed to be trooping-in with immediate effect as no student can risk failure by sitting at home.
No much time to waste as ASUU strike has set-back the academic calendar of the University. Most of other Universities who were not affected have completed their 18/19 academic session and in fact some Universities like FUTMINNA have even skipped the First Semester break to annul the drawback. So Usmanu Danfodiyo University should not be left behind.
On a final note, to encourage the law abiding students who decided not to go home so as to resume early and for those scrupulous students who have resumed at the stipulated time, we charge the University management to ensure that lectures start immediately as benefits-package to earlier resumers and to serve as lesson for the recalcitrant students who decided not to resume early.
It's our belief that this approach will enable the students of this University to take the resumption date seriously.
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