COURTROOM

“BOOK OF LIFE VERSUS LINK OF LIFE”

BOOK OF LIFE

-Oops!

        

One particular night at Zik Hall, everything was awkwardly silent, just like a graveyard. The atmosphere was completely devoid of the normal catcalls and turmoil generally administered by katangites. I, a naive 100 level student, felt the grossly abnormal atmosphere prevalent in the hall but nothing seemed wrong. My stallite roommate, who was one of the champion noisemakers, was also very awkwardly gentle and retired to the comfort of his bed, wearing a melancholic face. "Oga, book of life don comot" he roared after I enquired about the imminent situation. At that moment, I didn't know what that was, but I was certainly sure it was something very important to the lives of uites.

My lord, there is something called check-your-neighbor concept. It is quite obvious that with links, there will be nothing like that. The university, being an elite community, contains both brilliant and the not-so-brilliant alike. For many departments within the university, the book of life is the only way people see other person's results. If internet links were used, students who are genuinely in need of academic lifting will prefer to cover their iniquities and keep their crawling results to themselves because of lowered self-esteem, shyness, among other reasons. Without the book of life which reveals the results of uites to the world, many organizations and student bodies whose aim is to improve studentship will not detect these individuals and the good may simply get better while the bad get worse.

According to Nancy Pearcey, "competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best..." It is quite obvious that competition is essential to the growth of any setting, including universities. With book of life, people get motivated to perform better while those at the top strive to maintain their good positions. With individualization of results, competition is less likely and a particular student can portray himself local champion, not knowing that other people's farms are way bigger than his.

My lord, my opponent may base his argument on the fact that the link makes students' results anonymous and gives a level of secrecy to their results. But, really, what is so secretive about results nowadays? In this modern world where everything is turning global and information is now at finger tips, people's grades are particularly not secrets again. In fact, the university will still announce the number of students bagging a specific grade during convocation. Therefore, I humbly affirm that my opponent's premise is particularly not tenable to assess the best means of students' results uploading.

One of the reasons U.I has been respected all over the country is the fact that they are bold enough to show the world their students' results. My lord, this is unprecedented. Making results secret will definitely trigger concerns: "are they ashamed of their students' results now? are they failing now?" These are questions that have the ability to change people's perception about the school.

My lord, with all the points highlighted above, it is obvious that book of life is the best means of publicizing students' results. As some uites have been chanting, permit me, my lord, to request: "bring back our book of life.” Thanks.

LINK OF LIFE

-Silversmith

My lord, I am in a present state of mixed emotion today and I need to let everyone know the reason before I proceed. I was in this same courtroom some months ago where I abandoned the act of publicizing of results. If you recall, I explained how the act was very dishonoring. My lord, it might interest you to know that I left this courtroom unhappy that day. Ever since, I have prayed and offered all kinds of sacrifices to the gods of our land on this same issue. Lo and behold, few months after, we no longer have to worry about publicizing of results. This gladdens my heart. Instead of book of life which showcases our faults to the world, we now have links to our individual results. However, amidst an answered prayer, it is so sad that my opponent has still not drunk from the pot of wisdom and still thinks our results should be publicized by preferring book of life.

I won’t be surprised when my opponent claim that book of life is confidential and only few people are supposed to have access to it but at this junction, we need not bamboozle ourselves because majority of the students have access to it as soon as it is compiled. My lord, I try as much as possible not to tell most students my name immediately this book is out as I already know the aftermath when they are asking all of a sudden. But with “link of life’’ which is the link to the website where our individual results have been pasted, I can shout my name loud and clear for the whole world to hear.

When we look at tertiary institutions around, you will agree with me that the once usual system of publicizing results on notice boards which we can synonymously refer as book of life has now been replaced by a more sophisticated system like posting results on websites which University of Ibadan has just adopted. I will be disappointed when my opponent finally make the excuse that publicizing of results helps to improve academically because apart from leading to low self-esteem issues for those who score lower marks, publicizing of results in book of life also impact on those who score higher marks. Some students who score high marks, after getting their results public suddenly become the focal point of all their classmates. My lord, whenever a difficult question is being asked in class, all eyes suddenly be on these people to be the Jesus Christ. And I ask the one-billion-dollar question, to what end will book of life serve?

My lord, if there is something we all should fight against as a country, it is our individual differences. Everything in this country seems to divide us ranging from ethnicity to religion and I am afraid that the only one thing which seems to connect myself and Audu, a friend from the North and Azubuike from the East is University of Ibadan. Whenever our results are out in book of life, there is always a reconsideration. Although, we read, dine and sleep together but it always seems someone is playing smart as unlike us, our scores are not always friends and the more margin between our scores, the more we have been drifting apart as friend. There is no better way to look as this than the fact that book of life has a way of marginalizing us all and base most judgements about us on our results which is always available to all and sundry.

My lord, let us just turn a deaf ear to my opponent when he comes around to tell us that book of life foster competition amongst students. The question I would be asking him is to what end? Book of life often lead to a social divide among students. This could also lead to anxiety and depression in some cases because as studies has shown, most creative and intelligent students often struggle with self-doubt.  Have we forgotten so soon the number of students who commit suicide years as far results are concerned? Not to talk about the ones that are made public.

We need not overemphasize the consequences of book of life on students’s lives. We need not forget that it has taken more away from us. If there is anything to be made public, it is not our results but this article. I rest my case.