By Joseph S. Margai in Freetown, Sierra Leone
The Special Assistant to the registrar of University of Sierra Leone (USL) Registrar, Brima Bah, has told Groove 106FM that the university has rusticated (or reduced in class) one 127 students for various offences which breached USL’s rules and regulations.
While speaking in an exclusive interview in his Tower Hill office in Freetown on Monday November 6, 2017, Mr. Bah said the rusticated students have the right to appeal the decision of the committee set up to investigate the offences to the requisite appeals committee.
“Once their appeals come in, a committee would be constituted and for those who would be able to convince the appeals committee, the decision would be over turned,” he said.
The students were rusticated from various faculties at Fourah Bay College (FBC)-the oldest and one of the constituent colleges, of USL.
The Special Assistant to USL’s Registrar said USL administration received a report from FBC’s Discipline Committee on a number of cases for students who were involved in examination malpractices as well as faking registration slips.
He said the students were investigated and recommendations were made to the university and the Vice Chancellor and Principle has, on behalf of USL’s senate, taken action by penalizing the students accordingly.
“The students committed various offences that were categorized into five points. They included students with fake registration slips, those caught with foreign materials, those who refused to submit their answer booklets after examination, those who wrote answer booklet numbers on their attendance slips different from those of the distributed answer booklets, and those caught with headset and phone in the examination hall,” he explained.
He noted that there were 44 students who committed various offences from the Faculty of Arts, 11 from the Faculty of Engineering, 4 from the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science, 71 from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law. He added that of these 130 students, 100 were interviewed and thirty did not appear for the interview, and that 97 were found guilty and three (3) were exonerated.
“We have various penalties-those who were caught with fake registration slips were rusticated for two years, those caught with foreign materials in the examination hall, those who refused to submit their answer booklet, those who used different answer booklets from the ones they were given, those who were caught with headsets and phones were all rusticated for one year each,” he revealed.
He said the offences were committed during the first semester examinations, adding that the committee was set up to investigate it in June 2017 and they completed and submitted their report on September 13, 2017.
He said this was not the first time that USL has taken action against students who are involved in various offences, adding that USL has a track record of taking action against those caught in examination malpractices or those who in anyway, violate the rules and regulations of the university, and once they are investigated by the requisite committees and recommendations are made, actions would be taken accordingly.
“We believe that when they come back after this rustication, they will be conscious knowing that they need to abide by the rules and regulations of university,” he said.
He explained that the university has always been lenient with students who are facing challenges in their academic pursuit, citing that there were students who realized that they could not pay their fees and they wrote to the Registrar of USL explaining that they wanted to defer the course and they were granted.
“They can also appeal for an extension of deferment. We always tell them about these this and other policies whenever we meet with them at various gatherings,” he said.
