A letter former Moi University student wrote to the institution’s vice chancellor has exposed the situation of thousands of university students who completed their studies but cannot graduate because their marks are missing. This is the situation across several public universities and the economic costs to missing marks cannot be quantified. Here is the letter:
RE: MISSING MARKS IN MOI UNIVERSITY;
By Mwamburi Mwang’ombe
I refer to this subject due to a somewhat that has negatively affected and continues to negatively alter the lives of many current and previous students who you definitely wish success. It is the one thorn in the otherwise whole flesh of the institution that you preside over.
Mumo Patrick is a prominent case of the ugly injuries of the scourge I refer to herein. His has become a mental case where he does casual jobs at Muthurwa market, Nairobi. Our talk to him yielded no fruit the last time me and some colleagues spoke to him. He does not want us to tell him to come back to the University and try his luck with marks of exams he did. Some have given up the chase for their marks to the despair of ever getting any job respecting their fields of studies. These are a few among many cases which may be sorrier and unknown to us.
The frustrations which my wife has gone through have forced me to say this to you, albeit for the good of others. As I write, I have had to follow her to see what goes on here. It is sheer frustration. She has been in campus for four weeks to this hour due to marks she has never gotten despite joining her final undergraduate year in 2012. For the over seven times she has come to look for those marks, she has been accompanied by someone to take care of her (in her expectant situations thrice and with two infants (four times)).
I will not mention the health and security losses that we have suffered due to the frustrated and lactating situation she is in. I have spent over Ksh. 300,000 (an amount that is way above my means and of others) over all her journeys there. There is no single time she has stayed out of the university guest house save for this last week because it was made a police post and she had to relocate within a day. What if we considered the fact that she could already have been employed and earned for at least two years? This is a bad start for those who have to strive for the basics of life. The Schools of Education and Arts and Social Sciences (Departments of History and Kiswahili) have hurt us most.
Professor Sir, from our previous meetings, you will recall that we affirmed our obligation to remain true and ardent ambassadors of the esteemed Moi University. Those of us who have graduated thence and are meaningfully employed or in the public discussions for good reasons are among the most prominent of your advocates, there can be no one better place to.
What is one supposed to do when their lecturer loses the marks of exams they did and the said lecturer chooses when to be present and give those marks? What if the same lecturers force students to look for marks from booklets long collected and disposed? What do we tell the parents of my wife who paid her PSSP fees and there is nothing to show for that, almost three years down the line?
Our siblings, friends, workmates and neighbours will ask us to advise them on joining our Moi University.
If you may want to refer to any living case, I have some among many. They are:
1. Collins Muga +254 727 080 416 *Adm 2007
2. Mumo Patrick +254 704 902 903 *Adm 2008
3. Eric Mwendwa +254 701 159 490 *Adm 2008
4. Felix Mutune
5. Kelvin Makokha +254 714 895113 who has since graduated but is unable to enroll for a masters programme due to his missing transcripts.
It seems like this is one of those times you may think of a taskforce to report on the total number of these cases and ascertain the damage to students and the institution.
I ask, like W. E. B. Du Bois:
“What happens to a dream deferred?… Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over – like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?â€
Having been privileged to sit in the University’s Council, Senate and many other committees, I am awake to the challenges facing administrators and students. However, I am reluctant to endorse this as one of those challenges against which nothing can be done. Through you, I know the issue of how to go about missing marks can be resolved once and for all. Let there be clear frontiers over, around and about it, in the unfortunate circumstance it appears.
There is much more and an ever-readiness to substantiate any of the concerns I have raised here.
I am faithful,
Mwang’ombe Mwambeo
25th MUSO SGC CHAIRMAN
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