Students withdrawn from the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi for various punitive reasons, continue to illegally parade themselves as students thereby milking the hard-to-earned resources of their parents and, or guardians.
The polytechnic like every other tertiary institution in the country ditched out modalities every student admitted into the institution must meet to secure their places in the sacred document of the polytechnic.
While not all admitted students are able to cope with the intensity, rigour and demand of academic life tenable in the polytechnic, they are shown the exit door.
For instance, based on the provisions of relevant bye-laws of the polytechnic, students who failed to score a Grade Average Point of 1.00 at the end of their first session in the polytechnic or found guilty of exams malpractice as well as engaging in proscribed activities on the campus like cultism, armed robbery and rape will be withdrawn from the institution as a deterrent to others.
While the polytechnic’s authorities continue to, within the ambit of laws of the school, withdraw deviant students, the concerned group of students persistently devise ways to defy the sanction just to maintain the status quo among their peers and fellows.
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Oftentimes, they do that with the guilt of having wasted and betrayed the trust of their parents, guardians and relatives who invested heavily to educate them. They endure the hard economic times currently tenable in the country amid rising tuition fees charged by tertiary education institutions in the land.
Campus Radiant reports that such students, in order not to tamper with the feelings of their parents or guardians or sponsors; hide their actual school situation from them and continue to dubiously maintain a room in the students’ village or squat in the hostel with their friends who are lucky to survive.
“We continue to extort resources from our parents, friends and relatives to pay for house rent and buy foodstuffs among our basic survival needs,” one of the withdrawn students who does not want to appear in print said.
Wherever they are, withdrawn students are easily identified with their unique traits of not taking academic activities seriously, and continue to default for tests and assignments. They are never serious about what ordinarily ought to have been taken seriously.
At some point, for porous gatekeeping at the level of the departments of the polytechnic, these students attend lectures and even attempt to write exams for themselves and impersonate their colleagues who ignorantly look up to them as gurus.
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A source at the Security Unit of the polytechnic confided in Campus Radiant that Class Advisers don’t feed the unit with the details of withdrawn students, hence, such students defy all possible checks.
He said unless the various academic departments of the polytechnic diligently do their work through their respective Class Advisers, withdrawn students will continue to exploit unblocked loopholes disguised as students of the institution.
“Actually, in that case, I can say that it is a fault of Class Advisers and their Departments. The Departments know the students more than the security unit you understand,” he insisted.
The Chairman Examination Misconduct Committee of the Polytechnic, Dr Hamid Adamu Mohammed said the existing laws of the school provide a legal framework for the polytechnic to deal with students in alleged cases of examination misconduct and malpractice.
He, however, said the same bye-laws cannot be applied to individuals who impersonate on behalf of registered students of the polytechnic after being withdrawn or dismissed.
“You see if you are a withdrawn student, you are no longer a student at Federal Polytechnic Bauchi. So, you are going to be tried under an impersonation case, if the institution is interested, the institution could take you to the court because you are not a student of the institution.
“So this is a case between you and a non-student with the institution,” the Chairman said.
