Students at the University of Guyana Tain Campus have accused a lecturer of unprofessional grading in four courses for third- and fourth-year students; and as such, have called for her removal.
While the students are calling for their grades to be revised, they have vowed to strike if the lecturer remains at the educational facility.
Close to three dozen students have expressed their concerns, and have written to the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry in relation to their dissatisfaction with grades given to them.
Fearful of victimisation, the students have asked to remain anonymous. They claim they are being treated unfairly by the female lecturer who tutors four subjects: Agribusiness Management, Extension Education, Field Crops, and Rural Sociology and Extension.
According to the students, they went into exams with an average of 55 marks out of a possible 70 for coursework in the Agriculture faculty. The final exam has a
University of Guyana, Tain Campus
maximum of 30 marks, and in order for them to have secured an ‘A’ or ‘B’, they needed at least 19.5 of the 30 marks. In those four courses, only a few students were able to secure such, with many of them arguing that their grades should have been higher.
The students, in January, penned a letter to the Dean. Dated January 3, 2018 and copied to the Director of the Berbice Campus Dr Gomathinayagam Subramanian, the letter, after mentioning the name of the lecturer, reads in part: “We believe that the grades received were not fair and (were) highly improbable. Some of the students only required an average of 50 % or slightly above for the final examination in order to obtain a suitable final grade. However, the final grade obtained revealed a drastic decline. As this is an issue faced by many students, we look forward to an expedient redress from the administration, in order to restore our confidence in the Administration of the University of Guyana.”
The students claim the grading was very poor last semester, and is even worse this semester.
According to some of the affected students, they may have been victimised by the mentioned lecturer, while there is a question mark over any review by the administration, knowing that some of them will be graduating in November.
This publication sought on Friday to get a comment on the issue from the Director of the Berbice campus, but was told comment would not be possible until Tuesday.
The students related they were promised that the administration would look into the matter since January, but nothing has been done. The young men and women believe that they are continuously being overlooked by the administration, even though they are paying in excess of $200,000 for tuition.
