NOUN GRADUATION CONTROVERSIES : HoD Mass-communication Clarifies Requirements

By Emeke Nwaoboli /Daniel Adeoluwa Mustapha

The Head of Department (HoD), Mass-communication, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Dr Onwubere Chidinma has made clarifications on the controversies surrounding the list of required core courses, electives, minimum credits to be earned, and minimum Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) mass-communication students, NOUN, must accumulate to qualify for graduation.

In some documents prepared, signed by Dr Chidinma and exclusively made available to Impact-TrustINFO and inversely forwarded to THE MEDIA on Friday, for any mass-communication student (B.Sc) to be qualified for graduation, he/she must have attained a minimum of 120 credits, 1.5CGPA, while Direct Entry students must attain 90 credits as well as a minimum of 1.5CGPA.

The HoD noted that students must simultaneously pass all GST courses, CIT101, CIT102, Research Proposal (Mac418), SIWES (MAC318), all carry-overs, all compulsory courses on the registrable course list and a minimum of 16 credit units of elective courses.

Speaking on whether it's mandatory for the students to write all newly introduced core courses and some newly added electives, she explained through the document that at present, the courses students are expected to write among the newly introduced courses are : Introduction to Law and Diplomacy in Pre-colonial Africa (INR112), Foundations of Broadcasting (MAC242), Educational Broadcasting (MAC246), Entrepreneurial Studies 1(GST301), International Communication and World Global Systems (MAC311), and Introduction to Nigerian Constitution Development (POL123), which is an elective course.

On the other hand, though not stated in the document, THE MEDIA garnered that Mac132, Book/Desktop Publishing (Mac315) and Photojournalism (MAC323) are at present, inexaminable due to the inaccessibility of their textbooks.

Dr Chidinma admonished all mass-communication students to, without excuses, adhere to the above requirements as '' any other thing any student does outside the provisions of the documents is null and void ''.

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Emeke Nwaoboli is the Editor-in-chief, Repota Atlarge Magazine, while Daniel Adeoluwa Mustapha is the founder and publisher of Impact -TrustINFO blog site. Both are confident final year mass-communication students, NOUN.