Eitorial: A Bad Precedence to Condemn and Probe

The African Methodist Episcopal University or AMEU in Monrovia, on Wednesday, November 30, 2011, “graduated” more than six hundred students in various academic disciplines. A number of students who reportedly failed to meet the requirements were also allowed to participate in graduation ceremony.

The AMEU Commencement Convocation held at the SKD Sports Stadium in Paynesville, outside Monrovia followed an argument raised by the AMEU Alumni Association with the Commission on Higher Education against the decision by the administration of the university to graduate such students.

In spite of the foregoing, the AME University still proceeded to let the students out without completing their courses of study.

The irony about the entire situation is the justification presented publicly by the Director General of the Commission, Dr. Michael Slawon that the students had already ‘paid’ their fees and that there was no need to stop them once they had been cleared by the administration to match and return later to complete.

He told a local radio show Thursday that “the graduates would return after the commencement convocation to complete their courses provided a written commitment was made”. If the foregoing statement by the Director General of the Commission on Higher Education in Liberia should be something to accept, then our country has again made history.

Truly, the AME University made Wednesday, November 30 another sad day in the history of the Liberian educational system. To our recollection, there is nowhere in the world wherein degrees are conferred on students following which they return to complete their courses of study.

The AME University must be made to account for such academic desecration and pollution. This is indeed an academic crime not acceptable in any well-meaning and civilized society as ours. For abating such crime and bringing disgrace on our educational system, Dr. Michael Slawon must also pay the [rice.

While we may not want to jump into any conclusion at this point by being definite, the gravity of the situation makes it not only important, but urgently urgent for the Government of Liberia, through the Ministry of Education to launch a probe as to what actually went wrong.

Such a probe must not only involve the administration of the AME University and Dr. Slawon, but also the “graduates who defrauded the educational system.” This is a bad precedence that all well-meaning Liberians must condemn because of its negative reflection on the country.