I want to start my point with the quote of Alec Bourne (A doctor of creed)
He says: It is possible to store the mind with the million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
I want to talk on a semester system in Pakistan’s universities. Each and every university mostly has adopted the semester system for the purpose of education. Now the question in this:
“Is this system really serving the basic needs of education for the students?”
Semester system is based on a short time period which consists of 16 to 18 weeks. In this process, delivering of lectures very fast. Due to this, student cannot learn anything. They just memorize or cram things for obtaining marks. As the semester goes, they forget everything they have learned during the semester system. The teacher is always busy to complete his /her lecture and student is always busy in filling the blanks of attendance and to get marks just for obtaining a job. They are not concerned with learning anything.
In my personal view, semester system is good for the students but the way it is implemented in our universities have killed its main purpose. Universities claim that their students are free to choose any subject from the whole curriculum but mostly do the opposite and bond the students with fixed subjects that the students have to study during a semester. This should be changed. Second is that the over burden of quizzes, assignments and number of exams should be removed. If we see the example of University of Melbourne, Australia, semester system there is implemented in a very different way. No quiz, some assignments,
the only one exam after the semester and two weeks’ holiday before the exams, gives lot of time for students to revise, absorb and prepare. As a result, less burden during semester and lot of time after semester gives them the opportunity to absorb the subject properly, I wish this kind of semester system should implemented in Pakistan.
ZAKIA NAWAZ,
Vehari, May 9.