LEICESTER NOVEMBER 2014
ED SHEERAN ON THE RECORD
PAGE 07
WIN: A holiday to Les Deux Alpes & tickets to Rise Festival FIND OUT HOW ON PG 12
THE LATEST SPORTS FROM YOUR UNIVERSITY
PAGES 37 & 39
WHY YOU CANNOT SIMPLY HAVE STAND-INS AT UNI LAUREN KNIGHT
EVERY YEAR, a new intake of Freshers swarm the De Montfort University campus. De Montfort University has recently experienced a huge leap up the league tables and it is mostly due to the diversity of courses they have to offer prospective students. The University is more than able to cater for such a variety of students but with such promise comes the likelihood that other things may slip under the radar. At the beginning of last year, circumstances lead to a Media tutor being assigned a module leader role for Journalism. She took the position as a last minute stand in due to the other lecturer not returning that year due to extenuating circumstances. It was the best solution the university could come up with in such a short space of time before the new teaching year was to commence in September. This meant that the teacher was required to teach an area they had never before taught and also learn an entire year’s worth of syllabus over the summer vacation. Guy Bezant, Student Representative for Journalism, said: “I had numerous people ask me how the year would pan out with a lecturer who was effectively learning the material along with us.” “She did the best job she could with the hand she was dealt, but when we as students pay huge sums of money for a particular standard of teaching, it does make life that much harder.” De Montfort University is brilliant at looking at the bigger picture. They understand Leicester’s multi-cultural surroundings and the opportunity
that comes with it. It welcomes many new students every year that come from many different social and racial backgrounds. They offer a multitude of courses and aim to create an environment in which a student’s creativity can flourish. This won’t happen if a lecturer doesn’t understand or is familiar with the topic they are teaching, even if they are an emergency stand in. Without the foundation knowledge for the course, it meant the students were being taught by someone who was essentially learning at the same pace as them. It was sometimes the students teaching the lecturer when it should have been the other way around. It caused stress among classes for the module that she was teaching. One of the most common complaints from students was when they received feedback on essays. The lecturer’s feedback offered more Media critique as opposed to Journalism critique, which is what the students required. Another difficulty was the lecturer could only offer them limited guidance. She struggled to answer the questions they had and had to defer some students to other teaching staff that the students did not see on a regular basis. Hannah Louise Wilson, third year Creative Writing and Journalism student said: “She was a good tutor; I found the lectures engaging and interesting, except they were heavily media based and limited with the helpful information us journalism
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UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN COURT FOR RENTING A HOUSE TO STUDENTS WITHOUT HAVING APPROPRIATE LICENCE DANIELLA MARSH
PICS: DANIELLA MARSH
A prized academic named Dr Obas Ebohon has appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ court due to being suspected of renting a house out illegally. Ebohon had been reported to the authority by one of the tenants living in the house at the time, who according to a Leicester City council Prosecutor, strongly suspected that he did not pose the correct licence. The 58 year old rented out
his house to seven students living in the area of Severn Street, Highfields. Obas Ebohon lives on Scraptoft Lane in the heart of Leicester and is a lecturer in Energy and Sustainable development at De Montfort University. Along with teaching lectures at regularly DMU, he has also taught many other lectures around the world throughout his career. Ultimately at the end of
his trial, the doctor pleaded guilty and has been given a heavy fine as a consequence of his deplorable actions. The active member of the South African Institute of Building was charged with four offenses related to the house he was renting including: failure to apply for a multiple occupation licence for the property and failure to display his telephone number or address in the house clearly.
Furthermore, he also pleaded guilty for failing to ensure that the walls of the house were safely maintained while also failing to ensure the property’s windows and ventilation were maintained to a safe standard. Students should check that all windows and doors are fitted securely in their property as this can be a potentially very dangerous safety hazard.
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