A North West University (NWU) Masters student, who was excited that she had passed her postgraduate qualification, got a rude awakening when she was told that her pass had turned into a disastrous fail.
Dibona Peggy Matladi, a junior lecturer at the University of Limpopo (UL), registered for her Master Degree in Mathematics with NWU in 2021.
This is after she had completed her undergraduate degree in Maths and Chemistry at the University of South Africa and then completed her Honours in Maths at UL.
Speaking to IOL, Matladi said when she registered for her Masters, she was confident that she would pass without any trouble because she completed her previous qualifications with ease.
“I don’t want to blow my own horn and claim to be the best, but I know I am a hard worker. Hence when I started my course work at NWU, I made sure I completed it within record time,” she said.
“I even got more than 80% in two of my course work modules and the university did not question my distinctions on the marks I got. I wrote an article with my supervisor and it was published this year 2024 in April.”
After completing her course work, she opted to major in Topology and the title of her dissertation was: ‘On expansive homeomorphism of uniform spaces’.
She said the university assigned Professor Olivier Olela-Otafudu to be her supervisor and she completed her dissertation in 2023 and it was examined the same year.
“Prof Olela-Otafudu allocated two external examiners to evaluate my work. One was from The University of Almeria in Spain and the other one was from the University of Nis in Serbia,” she said.
“One of the examiners was satisfied with the quality of the dissertation while the other requested that their comments be addressed before giving their verdict. I addressed the comments and then submitted the revised dissertation in January 2024,” she explained.
Matladi said she was informed that the two examiners had allocated 80% and 60% for her work according to her supervisor.
“Prof Olela-Otafudu congratulated me on his WhatsApp status for successfully completing my studies after the release of the second examiner’s verdict in January 2024. His status further indicated that external examiners allocated pass marks of 80% and 60% respectively,” she said.
She said Professor Olela-Otafudu told her that usually in such cases, the department will combine the marks and get an average which would be 70% in this case.
Matladi said she was happy with her results but her happiness suddenly turned into pain.
“I waited for the university to release my formal results and the graduation date but they didn’t. I made a follow up with Prof Olela-Otafudu as my supervisor and he assured me that my results were submitted to the department and I had no reason to worry.”
As she was seeking answers, she was contacted by the faculty to have an in-person meeting in July 2024.
She made the long drive from Limpopo to North West where she attended a meeting with the three professors from the department who subsequently told her that she actually failed.
“They told me that there was a huge difference between the 80% and the 60% and because of that, they decided to take the matter to an arbiter who then suggested that a third examiner must be roped in. I was told that the third examiner gave me below 50% and that’s the final mark that they will go with.”
Explaining the day of the dreadful news, Matladi said she was beside herself.
“I don’t think I have ever cried like that before. The pain was unbearable, especially realising that all the hard work, all the efforts, all the sleepless nights, all the blood and sweat I injected into my degree was all in vain. I felt unfairly treated by NWU,” she said.
“They told me to register again and said I should change my topic and they will allocate me a new supervisor and pay for the tuition fees.”
Matladi said she rejected the offer and asked the matter to be reviewed.
“Why did they appoint Prof Olela-Otafudu to supervise me if they doubted his credibility, again, why go with a low mark when two independent examiners have already deemed my work competent?’’
“Okay, if they wanted input from their preferred examiner, why didn’t they take the three marks and get an average, why ignore the pass and go with the fail from one person?’’ she asked.
Matladi said she tried to challenge the outcome of her devastating results but her attempts were thwarted by the university.
IOL spoke to Professor Olela-Otafudu who explained that he was employed by NWU until he moved to UL in December 2023.
He added that even though he left the institution, he still had two PHD students that he was supervising.
He also confirmed that he worked with Matladi for her dissertation.
“I worked with Matladi and supervised her work. I vouched for two external examiners who were specialists and were the best [in the field]. The first examiner awarded her 80%, the second one came back and wanted some corrections before he could give his mark. Matladi did the corrections and then the examiner awarded her 60%,” he said.
Professor Olela-Otafudu said that when the 60% was awarded, he had already left NWU to start a new career at UL.
When asked how he knew that the second mark was 60%, he explained that he was in touch with the examiner who evaluated Matladi’s work.
“After the final mark came back from the examiner, I don’t know what happened, I had already left and I was not involved. But I know the university did get her final marks from both examiners,” he said.
Explaining the procedure of allocating the final mark from examiners with different scores, Professor Olela-Otafudu said usually, the university would combine the marks and get an average.
“I honestly don’t know if things have changed at NWU or not. I don’t even know how they appointed the third examiner because I was not even told about this third examiner. I was not there,” he said.
Responding to Matladi’s issue, NWU’s spokesperson, Louis Jacobs explained to IOL that the matter was handled in terms of the university’s academic rules.
According to Jacobs, Matladi was scored 98% by one examiner and no mark was provided by the second examiner, who subsequently requested a major revision of the entire dissertation.
“This then necessitated a process of revision by the student. Once the revised copy was received, it was sent back to the second examiner who then scored her a mark of 60%.”
Jacobs mentioned that according to academic rules, marks scored by examiners should not differ by more than 15% and in this instance, the difference was 38%.
He said the faculty then appointed an arbiter to assess the research and make a recommendation on the research result.
“A conclusion was made that the mark scored by the first examiner was highly unrealistic and possibly indicates a superficial reading of the dissertation. [On the second examiner], the arbiter remarked that the student only made obvious corrections and no deeper revision as was requested.
“To be fair to the student, a third examiner was appointed, who then failed the student due to various shortcomings in the dissertation. This examiner pointed out that there were indications of possible text lifting pointing to self-plagiarism.
“After consultation with the advisor on academic integrity matters, it was concluded that the examination piece would need to be revised and rewritten.
“In terms of the academic rules, a third examination opportunity is not possible, and the only option was to give the student the opportunity to continue but only when the topic of the mini dissertation was changed. She was also provided with a new study leader,” explained Jacobs.
Jacobs added that everything was explained to Matladi and she was also given an opportunity to declare a dispute with the university, but she has not yet done so.
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