The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, has disclosed that the "Pass Degree" had become irrelevant in the Nigerian Universities System (NUS).
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He said this during the monthly press luncheon, held on Thursday, 5th March, 2015, at the Rockview Hotel, Abuja.
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Prof. Okojie stated that the decision to abolish the "Pass Degree", which was not a Honours degree, was not a unilateral decision by the NUC, rather it was reached at a Stakeholders' Consultative Workshop in 2003, which was convened to discuss the Benchmark Minimum Academic Standards (BMAS) and implementation of the course credit system.
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As a result of the consultation, the minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) was set as 1.5, consistent with the course credit system.
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The NUC Scribe noted that the Consultative Workshop also reached a decision to abolish the semester system where a student who failed to meet up the CGPA requirement was given an opportunity to carry the courses he/she failed over to the next academic year, rather than reseat the examinations in same academic year.
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He said that the new system placed the students on probation to serve as a warning and give them room to improve on their performances, adding that any student who still could not meet up was allowed to transfer to another department where he/she could perform better and graduate with better grades, rather than a pass.
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The Executive Secretary said that the stakeholders' decision was not a recent one, only that it had not been implemented by some universities.
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He said that in today's competitive world, "a Pass Degree" would not get a graduate a job and it was to help these students that some universities had removed the "E" letter grade and stopped issuing "Pass Degrees" all in a bid to improve the level of Nigerian education and in turn make our graduates and certificates compete elsewhere in the world, the idea being that there was no point issuing a graduate an irrelevant certificate.
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Okojie added that the decision was not retroactive and that those with a "Pass Degree" before now could continue with it in any area they wanted to venture into.