Students Protest Against New Grading System

In a bid to restore law and order in and around the campus, the authorities of Benue State University on Monday 2nd September, 2019, shut the institution asking students to vacate the campus.

According to a statement issued by the Registrar of the University, Dr Mfaga Modom, the university noted that the closure was necessary, following the protest embarked on, by the students against the five Point Grading System.

The students as early as 6.00 a.m, blocked the two gates of the University located along the busy Makurdi/Gboko Highway, singing and calling on the University management to reverse the policy on grading system to the old practice of calculating Cumulative Grade Point Average.

To avoid breakdown of facilities on the campus, armed security personnel, comprising Police, Civil Defence and DSS were deployed to the campus.

A 300-level student in the Department of Political Sciences, Peter Agbo, said the University management began the implementation of the new grades without notifying the students.

He alleged that the school wanted to implement the policy mainly to victimize some students thought to be brilliant but not in the good books of some lecturers, noting that about 150 students in that category had been pencilled down to recalculate their grade point based on the new arrangement.

“To me, this is not too good for some students, particularly those in 400 level who are about to graduate”, he said.