Unisa students are fuming after the university brought the exam dates for some modules forward by almost a month, giving them hardly any time to study but the tertiary institution has denied this.
They took to Twitter to vent their frustration, complaining they were being forced to write the exams earlier despite Unisa only delivering hardcopies of study material to some of them last week.
Another complaint was that students who wrote the principles of management accounting module on May 28 were not given their results but were instead admitted to the October/November exams as supplementary exam students.
Sunday Times Daily has been very reliably informed that students also wrote to higher education minister Blade Nzimande’s office requesting his assistance in getting Unisa to reschedule the October/November exam dates so that students could have enough time to study.
Those registered for their third year of study for the bachelor of commerce in economics degree said the final exam timetable, which was scheduled to have been released on September 13, was only released on September 27.
A student who registered for five third-year modules for the bachelor of commerce in economics degree on August 25 said she only received hardcopies of her study material on Monday.
“I was expected to submit five assignments by September 22 and five more by October 2. We now have to write five exams from October 21. This is totally unacceptable.”
She said one of her papers, scheduled to have been written on November 30 according to the provisional exam timetable, had now been brought forward to October 30.
Responding to her concerns, one of her lecturers informed her in an e-mail that the decision to bring the exams forward was taken by the university, “which as a department we cannot alter”.
I was expected to submit five assignments by September 22 and five more by October 2. We now have to write five exams from October 21. This is totally unacceptable.
— Student
“We raised our concern as well. Unfortunately we were informed that the timetable was final. I’m sorry about this.”
Another student said her exams were brought forward by three weeks.
“I write three third-year exams two days after my last assignment is due.”
One of her papers was moved forward by 27 days – from November 18 to October 22.
“The exams I’m writing are third-year economics [papers]. We were not put into tutorial groups this semester, which is where we usually liaise with a tutor about any questions and issues we have with content.”
She said textbooks prescribed by the university were also harder to get, as none of the suppliers had stock of one of her textbooks, forcing her to work with a PDF copy.
Yet another student said her last assignment was due on Monday and her first paper was on October 20.
“This means that I have 14 days to study for five of the most difficult third-year modules.”
The student said she was stressed and demotivated, adding: “Unisa should have considered the implications of the rushed exam period on students. It is literally setting us up for failure.”
Meanwhile, a student who is still awaiting her results for the principles of management accounting paper that was written in May was adamant she would not be rewriting it.
“I studied for it, and I wrote the exam and e-mailed my answer script. One lecturer said that there is a backlog at the exams department and that is why there is a delay in our marks.”
She said students wrote the online exam but could not upload the answer scripts on to Unisa’s exam system because of a technical problem.
“We were then told to e-mail our scripts to the course administrators and lecturers, which we did. But our scripts have not been marked, and we have been admitted to write the supplementary exams, which is less than three weeks away.”
Unisa’s acting spokesperson Lusani Netshitomboni said in a statement that the exam timetable was compiled centrally for all modules and that “the dates were not changed or moved forward for a specific group of students or for a specific programme”.
Students had access to all study material from the day they registered for a module and were encouraged to register before the end of July and not wait for semester 1 results.
— Unisa acting spokesperson Lusani Netshitomboni
According to the draft exam timetable, the exam period was scheduled for October 19 and amended to October 17 to accommodate additional days for the exam.
“Students had access to all study material from the day they registered for a module and were encouraged to register before the end of July and not wait for semester 1 results.”
Commenting on the late delivery of study materials, Netshitomboni said because of lockdown regulations their despatch staff was not operating at full capacity.
“Students have access to online material when they register for a module and were therefore not disadvantaged.”
He said that during the principles of management accounting paper on May 28 the system crashed and could not allow students to upload their exam scripts.
“Most students ended up e-mailing their scripts to different addresses.”
He said the university “acknowledged their fault” and gave students a second opportunity to write the paper on July 10.
“All students who did not have exam marks from the May/June exams were automatically deferred to the October/November exams as supplementary exam students.”
Netshitomboni said when students submitted proof of exam submission for the May/June exams, their scripts were marked and included in the late mark summaries for the capturing of results.
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