So far, the global academic world goes, semester system of teaching has proved its efficacy. Nonetheless, it has succeeded in yielding fruit in Pakistan only partially. It is successful because it keeps the learners and students at their toes to meet up their requisite goals and to get a degree of skill and professional training. Moreover, the time bound nature of semester system with its essential number of lectures make it all the more efficient. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, all norms and principles are being followed only partially and the absence of an efficient regime of monitoring and evaluation and a total lack of rewards and punishments, the system is coming to prove itself a lame duck rather than a powerful machine of educational system of Pakistan.
The very first and key semester rule regarding the faculty to instruct the learners emphasis that there has to be at least one PhD to initiate any BS program and that no faculty less than MPhil should teach the BS level classes, which is endorsed and followed by multiple universities all across the countries and sirected by the HEC, Islamabad. The paramount significance of the learned faculty is kept at this level so that the level of the learners may be enhanced and all lectures to be delivered help enhancing the level of the learners to the maximum level to be awarded the graduation level certificate and enable him a useful and employable part of the work machine of the society and who could contribute to the welfare of the society as a highly skilled person.
This is, however, pathetic and deplorable that in most of the colleges the Masters degree holders are teaching and Highly qualified faculty is either not allotted classes or are ignored in favor of Master degree holders. Same is the case with the private universities who, unfortunately, to save money, employ Master degree holders and ignore PhDs so that they have not to pay the highly skilled and qualitied faculty. This practice is yielding the outcome, who is neither qualified nor skilled for the kind of job referred above.
Another of the reasons for the partial success of the semester system is the non-observance of credit hours. A credit hour is the time spent actively by the teacher and the student in the class room which is at least for 60 minutes and at least three times a week. The authorities in some affiliated colleges take more care for the 45 minutes class as is found in non-BS studies and so count the credit hour in that way. This kills again the very spirit of the Semester based education system.
Sessional marks are another good motivation-based aspect of semester system. The students are not only motivated to do practical things for their learning but also are forced to enhance their speaking and writing skills. But this aspect fails miserably when the students don’t do these things as per requirement. For example, students read out papers in the name of presentations and offer copied material for assignments. They also don’t turn up in the classes in regular and punctual way and so the purpose of credit hour and practical skill fails. But, on the other hands, teacher’s sympathies are invoked on many other pretexts to extort maximum marks. As a result, the students have highest possible marks in his degree but the burden of proof remains on his head that the bag of marks belongs to him really. Fortunately, some of the universities in Pakistan have started to enforce the real spirit of semester system and so their product is far better as compared to the remaining students, especially in the affiliated colleges.
This is, however, pathetic and deplorable that in most of the colleges the Masters degree holders are teaching and Highly qualified faculty is either not allotted classes or are ignored in favor of Master degree holders. Same is the case with the private universities who, unfortunately, to save money, employ Master degree holders and ignore PhDs so that they have not to pay the highly skilled and qualitied faculty. This practice is yielding the outcome, who is neither qualified nor skilled for the kind of job referred above
There’s no denying the fact that Pakistan has also to cope with the rising demands of the world economy which needs the graduates well equipped and skilled because of their training through semester system. This is necessary because of the globalization impact that now our graduates seek jobs in multinational companies and so they must be capable enough to deal with the day to day affairs of the business economy. But wherever the semester rules are not followed in true letter and spirit, the graduate finds himself at a loss in competing with the well trained and well equipped and skilled graduates from the foreign lands and even the deficiencies are pointed out.
I am not in disfavor of the annual system of teaching but I do emphasize that we must reform ourselves wherever it is needed to become the part of the global economy. But there is dire need to understand the ground realities of Pakistan and the teachers must be trained accordingly and the students may be in turn trained by these teachers. While the sole purpose of the education system must be to produce a graduate, who may be fit as per needs of the society and to compete in the international market as well. This is only possible when we may not enforce our individual idiosyncrasies and let the system function with its full force so that it can yield a powerful product.
The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson College, Multan. He can be reached at [email protected] and Tweets at @Profzee