Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, semester is one of two usually 18-week periods that make up an academic year at a school or college. The word semester is said to have been first used in 1827 and is of German, from Latin semestris.
One country where semester is used to divide a school year is the United States of America. Even though the US uses semester to divide academic year into two, they also have a unique semester called-summer. The two academic semesters in use in the United States of America are Fall Semester starting from September to December while the second one known as Spring Semester begins in January through to May.
Research shows that whatever semester a candidate chooses to apply to enter college (as referred to in that clime)-Spring or Fall-is up to the student to decide which is worth his or her time. According to the above statement, a student has a choice as to which semester is most convenient. This means that it is not mandatory for all candidates to enter a tertiary institution at the same time. There are a number of advantages to the above arrangement. One advantage is financial. A given candidate may not be financially ready to start a tertiary education in a given semester. So, because another opportunity will present itself in the next six months or less for admission, a candidate can use that period to source for finance. The second is emotional preparation. It is a simple fact that every individual does not mature emotionally at the same pace and at the same time. While candidate A may be mature to begin tertiary education in a given Fall semester, candidate B may be mature enough for a serious academic pursuit in the Spring semester. Still another candidate may prefer summer. Another advantage that a true semester affords a candidate is that graduation is not necessarily fixed. A student can graduate in Fall, Spring or even Summer according to when the candidate entered the school and the mental capability. Given this kind of flexibility, tertiary education becomes a worthwhile venture and not a punishment as the situation seems to suggest in Nigeria. 
Another beautiful part of dividing the academic year into two semesters is that a true semester system does not pin a student to pursuing a single discipline during the academic career. A student has a choice of pursuing more than one discipline or certificate at a time provided the student has the mental capacity to pursue more than one discipline. A true system arrangement also enables a student to benefit from Summer programme which, because of its intensity, enables a student to finish one full academic year programme during the Summer semester thereby reducing the number of years spent in pursuit of a given discipline.
Let us bring home and look at the Nigerian semester system with the view to ascertaining if Nigeria truly runs a semester system. Firstly, a candidate seeking admission into a Nigerian university must fit into what JAMB (Joint Admission and Matriculation Board) says without choice or flexibility. Every candidate must take JAMB examination at the same time or risk staying at home for a full academic year or even more. Again, in the Nigerian semester, system-those who enter the university must graduate at the same time except one fails one or more courses. There is no room for flexibility and one cannot graduate with more than one certificate at a time. In some situations, it seems like an offence to graduate in more than one discipline at the same time irrespective of how brilliant, intelligent or gifted the student may be.
The above scenario obviously has a number of disadvantages which otherwise wouldn’t have existed. For instance, offering admission to more than five hundred candidates at the same time creates accommodation problems in terms of place of residence and classroom. It also seems like extortion for a candidate who failed to gain admission for no fault of his to again spend money in pursuit of admission any other time JAMB decides for another mandatory admission examination. The situation also places so much pressure on lecturers who cannot pay adequate attention to what individual student does. The resultant consequence is poor performance on the parts of both lecturers and students.
If semester functions as it should, the pressure mounted on JAMB to conduct admission examination yearly will be eliminated. Candidates will get into the University of their Choice in the semester of their choice and graduate in any semester of their choice. In fact, academic pursuit in Nigeria will be so meaningful and effective that both government and the citizens will appreciate tertiary education better than is the case at the moment.
This column is of the view that semester system, as operated in Nigeria, should be properly looked into with the view to making A SEMESTER TRULY A SEMESTER with all its benefits. Just thinking and I should be allowed!
Richard Akpan is Head of ICT, National Institute for Nigerian Languages, Aba, Abia State
