Some University of Zimbabwe final year post graduate social work students have expressed disquiet after they completed a module without attending a lecture or sitting for the final examination.
The students, who were doing the post graduate diploma in social work said they were shocked when they were told on June 30 that one of the individual assignments would be used as the final examination.
They said the community health for social workers module was supposed to be taught by a Chikombe, who sent the students a course outline on April 24 through the class representatives.
The students submitted the assignments in the course outline, but no lecture was conducted physically or even online after lectures went on strike.
UZ lecturers have been on strike since April demanding a review of their salaries, which they said had been stagnant for too long.
Lecturers at the country’s oldest institution of higher learning are said to be earning less than US$300 a month.
The social work programme students said on June 30, their course coordinator a Mavuka sent a message to the class representatives demanding an individual assignment, which was in the course outline.
“He marked the assignment and recorded the marks as an examination mark,” one of the students, who requested anonymity, said.
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“He was the one behind making students not sit for the exam because he wanted to punish students, who rejected his move to impose a class reprentative that student's did not want.
“The students told him that he could not impose a representative on them in November, 2024.
“On July 15, there was a board meeting attended by lecturers from the department of social work to deliberate on marks of an examination that was never set and a course that was never taught.
“This board finalised these marks to be uploaded as examination marks for the students.”
The students said one of the lecturers resisted an attempt by the department to use a similar strategy for the mental health and social work module.
“The lecturer told students to attend lectures for mental health and social work and she set an exam written on April 2025,” another student said.
“The students are concerned about being given a mark for something that they did not learn.”
There have been concerns about deteriorating standards at the UZ amid fears that the prolonged strike by the lecturers would worsen the situation.
Efforts to get a comment from the UZ administration on the latest saga were unsuccessful.
