Power failure disrupts UNILAG PG entrance exam

The qualifying examinations for candidates seeking admission to the University of Lagos postgraduate school have been disrupted because of power failure, the PUNCH gathered on Monday. Some of the candidates, who particularly were to write the Computer Based Tests, had the excercise disrupted on Saturday evening following the inability of one of the school’s generators to power the computers and other facilities for the examination.

The school’s Deputy Registrar (Information), Mr. Oluwatoyin Adebule, who described the development as minor, however, linked the disruption of the examination to server problems.

Confirming that the challenge had not been resolved as of Monday, he promised that the university would fix another date for affected candidates.

He said, “It was a fact that the generator went off and that is the generator of the centre. But the university also has a back-up from the main campus. But that (power failure) was not the issue. After they connected to the university generator, it was discovered that the server was down.

“It was when they (Post-Graduate School) realised that it was becoming dark around 6pm that they asked the candidates to go home. In fact, they are still battling with the server. As soon as we are through with it, we will reschedule examination. The university will inform the students of the rescheduled date through print media.”

Many of the affected candidates were seeking admission to study M.Sc. Economics and Master of Public and International Affairs.

The test, which began about 9am, was disrupted abruptly after the generator used to power the computers became faulty in the afternoon.

Our correspondent gathered that attempts to shift over to inverters as an alternative power source to ensure the continuation of the tests were futile as they also packed up after about five minutes later.

Some of them told our correspondent that they were dispersed about 6:30pm when technicians, called upon to fix the alternative power sources, were not forthcoming.

One of the candidates, Fatai Babatunde, lamented that he was on the verge of going in for the test before the power failure disrupted the examination.

Babatunde, who was to sit for the test at 4:30pm, said it was unfortunate that despite travelling several kilometres to Lagos, the test did not eventually hold.

He said, “We had done the orientation and accrediation before we realised that we were no longer going to write the test. But no official said a word and this development threw every one of us into confusion.

“It was until we started quizzing some of the invigilators on the reason for the delays that we were informed of the electricity challenges. I think they should have had a back-up plan. Maybe allowing candidates to take a paper and pencil test.”

Another candidate, Doyin Abiodun, said the university authorities should have conducted a manual test across board for all the candidates instead of the mandatory CBT for some candidates.

He explained that there was no justification for conducting a CBT when the requisite facilities and power sources were either not reliable or available.

He added, “Now we have to start waiting for an e-mail or Short Message Service notification to get a new date for the test. What about the time we have wasted considering the fact that some of us travelled from very far places to write the test?”