President of the Student Union body of FBC Adama Sillah pleads with administration to allow diploma student transition to degree programs

 

Newly inaugurated President of the Fourah Bay College student Union body Adama Sillah has pled with the administration to be understanding and allow students who have graduated from diploma level to transition to degree programs in the university.

According to Adama Sillah, this is a serious concern as students currently in diploma programs are doing so with the understanding that this will serve as a gateway to their desired higher education courses. She posted on her Facebook account that the decision of the university administration to demand that diploma students return to take WASSCE will psychologically torture students since they will consider themselves as high school pupils despite obtaining a college diploma.

This is after the University announced that they will be instituting a policy that will disallow diploma students from transitioning to degree programs after completion. According to the administration, the transition which had allowed students without five credits in West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to obtain a diploma and progress to degree courses with the combination of their WASSCE and the diploma obtained is obsolete and was never meant to serve as an access program for students.

The administration maintains that their previous practice of allowing this to happen unfairly sidelines those students who had to start with a degree. According to them, a student who enters with less than five credits for a diploma program should retake the WASSCE as many times as possible to obtain five credits which will qualify them to enter degree programs with or without their diplomas but without these credits, they will not be allowed into degree programs.