By Taofeek Bolaji
For anybody who is conversant with how resumptions have always been in Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, will argue not the fact that late resumption has become an embraced tradition by the students of the university. Students resume very late after holidays for the commencement of every session or semester. Customarily, every stretch of holidays in the university academic calendar appears to an average Danfodite as if unwritten additional weeks are added to the officially stipulated weeks of the holidays. Those who care to resume early add at least one week. While some, perhaps suffering from Didaskaleinophobia, go an extra mile, elongating holidays by three to four weeks.
If laziness is the act of unwilling to do what is supposed to be done, then, by implication, late resumption can be said to be a sheer example of laziness. By virtue of Danfodites’ usual late resumption, could we say ‘the lazy Nigerian youths’ have started displaying their indolence again
With all sense of respect, it is unjustifiable to describe danfodites’ actions as laziness. With a microscopic point of view, one could note that late resumption of the students does not just emerge but as a result of the fact that academic activities do not always start early on campus. I happened to spend my holiday on campus so I am aware of the closure of all the classrooms and lecture theatres during the semester break. ‘Closure of classes ends on the day of resumption’ was my thought. Were they really opened on 23rd of May, 2018 which was the official resumption date for the commencement of second semester? No. Most lecture halls were in their inaccessible status through out the first week of resumption. I was forced to ask: Could a reasonable lecture hold without a classroom or a lecture theatre? Who is to be blamed for the undue closure of the classrooms and lecture theatres at the time uncalled-for?
Furthermore, let me acquaint you with my encounter with one of the attendants in the University library. I was at the library to borrow a book. Being a bona-fide student of the school and having my borrower’s card with me, I approached the attendant with confidence. To my dismay, I was denied borrowing book. ‘Why?’ I requested. ‘The school is yet to resume fully’ he responded. ‘Yet to resume fully on the third day of resumption?’, l asked myself. Questions were begging answers in my mind: could it be that the school management is comfortable with the unnecessary extension of holidays by students? Or When does resumption become a gradual process?
Danfodites are so much aware of how snailpaced academic activities used to be in the early weeks of resumptions; lecture theatres not opened on time; some courses will yet to be scheduled on the timetable; library not functioning to its fullest. Thus, these give them the opportunity of spending few more days at their various abodes. Are they to be blamed? If at all they do this out of laziness, they still have tenable excuses to justify their actions. After all, the students are not meant to be in charge of administrative services.
Furthermore, the absence of most lecturers in classes in the early weeks of resumption also accounts for the late resumption. If students’ late resumption is cited as the reason behind their absence in classes, then, we say it is baseless. Early commencement of lectures by lecturers could bring a revolutionary change to the present status-quo of late resumption. For instance, the early commencement of CHM102 by the department of chemistry in the first week of resumption spured most of the students offering the course to resume early.
Meanwhile, the students are always at the receiving end of the consequence of the lateness in the kick-start of lectures and other academic activities. Most times, when the semester examination is approaching and many syllabi are yet to be covered, lecturers are obliged to adopt ‘fire brigade’ approach. Students are bombarded with series of make-up classes and assignments, and therefore, tensed the academic activities. They would be forced to read with pressure instead of pleasure. In the long run, the supposed hitch-free but strenuous academic activities reflect on the students performance in examinations. In fact, if GPs were to be airtime, many students GPs would not even flash a phone number let alone of saying ‘hello’.
Though, in most cases, students are the architects behind their poor academic performance. But, It will be hypocritical to fail to recognize the inconveniencies the usual lateness in commencement of academic activities cause on students’ performance. Alleviating these inconveniences lies most in the hands of the school management by ensuring that timetables are released and followed strictly before resumption, lecture theatres and classrooms are opened on time, lecturers start lectures at the inception of resumption, the school library works fully for smooth academic performance. Any student who then fails to resume early after all these aforementioned restructuring actions taken would have to face the music. As our people would say: ‘a kid is not stopped from contracting leprosy, so long he can live a lonely life in the forest’.