The Devil Called ‘Four-Point Scale’ and the Fate of Education in the North -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen

It is regrettable that I chose to begin this write up on a sad note. I do not have any alternative though I would have liked one. What best define our existence in Northern Nigeria today is sadness, melancholiness, insecurity, and what have you. Going by the world map and the common usage in the discourse of global political economy, the ‘North’ connotes progress, development, industrialization, modernity, advancement in education, science and technology. In Northern Nigeria, the reverse is the case. The North, in the lexicon of Nigerian political economy, refers to backwardness in virtually all indices of development. It is a common notion in some part of Nigeria that an average northerner is an illiterate (though this is glaringly duplicitous and laughable).

What I chose to address in this piece is the fate of education in the North. To say education in the North is in a state of comatose is to be stingy with the truth.

Virtually all public boarding schools are shot down in some parts of the North; students sent home indefinitely. Not because the government does not want them educated but because she cannot provide them with the needed protection against marauding kidnappers who have recently made kidnapping students for ransom a lucrative venture. It is as if there is conspiracy to kill education in the North. But if you believe in such a conspiracy, you are likely wrong. For I think the problem is more of northerners against northerners. Or how do you explain the intransigence of some northern universities on the use of 4 point scale grading system to destroy the future of their own children?

It is true that the National University Commission (NUC) gave a directive in December 2017 that all Nigerian universities should adopt four-point grading system. However, by October 2018, the NUC suspended the four-scale regime calling for an immediate reversion to five-point scale. The NUC realized some comparative disadvantages of the four-point scale and the flaws inherent in it. Some universities realized these flaws and did not change their grading system in the first place; for example University of Maiduguri, Bayero University Kano, University of Ilorin and many others. Some did follow the directive with immediate effects but reverted as soon as a new directive for reversion was given. The almighty University of Ibadan is a good example. Many universities in the South are in this category.

Some universities did revert to the five-point scale but only after students protested. But this does not augur well. Benue State University is a very good example. And just few weeks ago Federal University Dutsin-Ma reverted to five-point scale; and happily, so, without protest. The issue is: why is it that some universities in the North find it difficult to do the needful? Why do they turn blind eyes to the plight of their students? Is it that the students are more enlightened than their lecturers and school administrators to see and fathom the evils which the four-point scale represents? Why are we dragging feet on reversion to five-point scale? Where is justice in using different grading scales for different students? Must the students protest before we do the right thing?

It is disturbingly irksome and cringe inducing when people who should know better argue that there is no difference between the four and five-point scales. Academics who could not understand the differences (after being told) need to be re-schooled. For, apparently, they should have no business in the ivory towers. I wonder the kind of knowledge these crop of academics impart to their students. It is honorable to say ‘I don’t know the differences’. But to ‘authoritatively’ say there is no difference is laughable and it is a shameless display of ignorance. It is impossible, of course, to know everything. But it is disingenuous to deliberately claim to know what you don’t know. Such people are best described as those who do not know, and do not know that they don’t know, and this compounds their challenge of learning; and their problem of not willing to know. What a pity!

I think the Nigerian scholars in diaspora, in their recent chastisement of Nigerian scholars, must have this class of Nigerian academics in mind. Only the detached scholars and nonchalant university administrators to the plight of students would insist that their students’ results be computed with the four-point scale when the option of five-point scale is available. Now let’s turn to the difference; and also, the dangerous implications of four-point scale.

The reason once given that the four-point scale makes it very easy for students to graduate with First Class is a blatant lie. And I challenge anybody to a debate on this. In respect to First Class, there is no difference between the two grading systems. The difference majorly is in the Second Class Upper and Second Class Lower categories. The four-point scale narrows the gap and makes the chance of graduating with 2:1 very slim. For instance, in the five-point scale, 2:1 begins from 3.5 – 4.49, while in the four-point scale 2:1 begins from 3.0 – 3.49.

The difference is conspicuous. To make it more conspicuous, a candidate with 3.99 CGPA under the five-point scale is considered to be a strong 2:1 candidate. Whereas, if that same candidate result is computed using the four-point scale, he will end up with 2.99 as his CGPA which falls within the bracket of 2:2 (Second Class Lower). This is how students are terribly shortchanged. Candidates who should have graduated with 2:2 would end up with Third Class. Who will employ them? It is this basic arithmetic that students understand. Alas, those who should know pretend not to know.

From the above practical explanation, where do we locate justice? How would students with the same performance, the same ability, the same scores, go home with different grades? Which employer in our saturated labor market would waste time (or have time) to ask if a job seekers’ results are calculated on 4 or 5 point scale grading system to determine their status?

Note that most available job adverts call for 2.1 applicants. Plus, most universities in Nigeria and elsewhere peg their admission requirement threshold at 3.5 CGPA for post graduate studies. How would these unfortunate students prove that their 2.5 (Second Class Lower) on four-point scale is equivalent to 3.5 (Second Class Upper) on five-point scale? Would those schools even have time to listen to them when there are many more qualified applicants?

Teaching in most Nigerian universities (especially the federal ones) requires a Second Class Upper degree. Since we have denied some of our best brains this class of degree, their positions would, of course, be filled by job seekers from other regions of the country. Then we start singing, shouting, and crying marginalization. What is our problem in the north? You go to the South to do a MSc. program and get your degree in a year or highest two years, but here in the north, it will take you up to 4, 5, 6 or 7 years, or even more to bag same degree (though with some highly infinitesimally insignificant exemptions). Are we jinxed or bewitched in the north? Who did this to us?

The kidnappers who kidnapped our students in Chibok, Dachi, Kankara, and many other places in the North are majorly northerners, and victims of these heinous crimes are mostly northerners. These northern universities with the challenge of reversion to five-point from four-point scale are managed by northerners. Students who are at home (right now) due to closure of school are mostly northerners. Thus, we are our own problems. Do not believe in all these conspiracy theories. I know someone would say I am a northern jingoist because of this wake up call. If call to progress, development, justice, amounts to jingoism; so, let it be. The point is: 4 point scale is anti-progress, future destroyer, and demoralizer.

Abdulkadir Salaudeen
Salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com