Your GPA Does not Determine Your Brilliance

Your GPA does not determine your brilliance


Every Nigerian knows that it is not easy to go to a federal or state University in Nigeria.


This topic just popped into my brain just because a couple of days ago, the degree results were released, those who passed, passed, and those who failed, failed. Those who graduated with a first class rejoiced, while those who didn’t do too well sulked…!


The thing here is that the fact that you made a 4.95 GPA doesn’t mean that you’re the most brainiest person in the school environment…it simply means that you simply have the greater ability of cramming what you read and giving it back to the lecturer during the examinations instead of reading to your understanding.


I think that I have come to realize that the reason why most students in “Nigeria” graduate with a lower grade other than the first class thingy is not because they don’t know how to read or cram! Let’s be honest with ourselves here, most of us bribed our way through the University. While others toiled day and night, yet they come out with nothing. And you begin to ask yourself why???


One of my lecturers who was among those that compiled the final year results complained that there was a case of mass failure in the last graduating set. He said among thousands of students, none graduated with a first class from the department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages! And those who managed to graduate with a second class upper narrowly escaped graduating with a second class lower grade! I was dumbfounded because I was cock sure that we had some real brilliant students in that department. My lecturer now asked a question that I think some of us have an answer to….he said, “is the problem with the lecturers or the students?”


I actually did think that the problem was with the lecturer because most of them come to class, speak a lot of jargons and leave, expecting a student with no prior knowledge of the course to actually grab what he/she is saying. And when you end up asking questions, they bark at you as if you don’t have a right to ask a question on something you obviously do not understand.


Let’s be honest here, that fact that BOY A graduates with a whooping first class doesn’t mean that he is better than BOY B who graduated with a third class or a pass!
I know of a guy who graduated with a clean first class, but guess what? He doesn’t know how to write an informal letter!!! Will you now tell me that he is better than his neighbor who graduated with a pass who knows all the elements of grammar both in the spoken and written form?


In Nigeria, we place so much importance on GPs that we actually fail to see what a youth has to offer to his country! We fail to give them the opportunity to display those thoughts and ideas that they have been nursing since their childhood years…rather we judge them based on a piece of paper (which obviously doesn’t end up determining one’s level of success in life).



Take a good look at Wole Soyinka! one of Nigeria’s finest literary writers. What did he graduate with when he was in the University of Ibadan, Oyo State? A THIRD CLASS! Yes! But he left the shores of Nigeria to study abroad and he came back with a first class certificate. Why? Their learning system is much more favorable than ours.
It’s no longer news that students bribe their way through to first class by having amorous relationship with their lecturers, both male and female while others simply pay their way through the university. At the end of 4 or 5 years, these students graduate with first class and second class upper honors while those who spent endless hours in the library, foregoing their social lives and burnt the midnight oil end up with the second class or pass! Yet they call it an educational system. At the end of their stay, the school offers them a readymade position in the departments or faculties to become lecturers while those who graduated with a lower degree end up on the streets hustling for their lives.

Then you begin to wonder how they want to reform or rebrand the educational system of the country.


Your GPA doesn’t determine your brilliance!
Feel free to prove me otherwise.


~ By Queen "Cynosure" Ebong