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Poor performance of colleges | Academic year complexities
Performance of 89 colleges dismal, indicating an overall decline in the standard of education
Karachi, Sep 06, 2008: The number of colleges, both in the public and the
private sectors, whose results in the latest Intermediate Science Part-II
(pre-engineering, pre-medical and computer) annual examinations, remained below
10 per cent has risen to 89, indicating an overall decline in the standard of
education.
Out of these 89 colleges, results of as many as 47 colleges
remained zero per cent, sources said, adding that not a single student belonging
to 19 Science (pre-medical) colleges, 10 Science (pre-engineering) and 18
General Science (Computer) colleges could clear their Intermediate Science
Part-II annual examinations.
According to the statistics obtained from
Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi (BIEK), there are number of colleges
whose results in both the groups of Science (ie Pre-Medical and Pre-Engineering)
either remained less than 10 per cent or even zero per cent.
A number of
senior professors were of the view that shortage of teachers, irregular classes
and ill-equipped laboratories, etc were some of the major reasons behind the
poor performance of many of the city colleges.
They said that it was
mandatory for all students to attend at least 75 per cent lectures of each
subject, without which they could not take their annual examination. They said
that a similar condition should also be imposed on the teachers so as to ensure
that they gave their lectures regularly.
The educationists alleged that
as far as attendance of students was concerned, most of the colleges usually
sent fake attendance record of their students to the Board of Intermediate
Education, Karachi while there was no such system of sending teachers'
attendance record to the directorate of colleges.
Stressing the need for
a mass scale reshuffle of teachers in government colleges, they said that the
directorate-general of colleges in Sindh, while transferring and posting
teachers, should ensure a combination of senior and junior teachers so as to
avoid concentration of all junior teachers in one college. Admitting that most
of the government colleges are facing a shortage of teachers, especially of
Urdu, English and Pakistan Studies, a former director of colleges, Prof Haroon
Rashid, said that poor results produced by such a large number of colleges
clearly showed the true picture of science colleges in the
metropolis.
Highlighting another problem, he said that although science
subjects at the Intermediate level such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology and
Mathematics should be taught throughout the week there was a general trend of
delivering lectures on these subjects on alternate days only.
He also
stressed the need for bridging the gap between the syllabus of Intermediate and
Matric level science subjects.
A number of teachers also pointed out that
at many colleges there was only one chemistry teacher to teach the entire course
of chemistry whereas there should be two different chemistry teachers as the
subject also involved organic and numerical portion.
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Academic year complexities
Karachi: The academic year of first-year students at Karachi's government colleges has been shortened by no
fault of the students. This is in contrast to not only the rest of Pakistan but
the world where classes are held, on average, for over 200 days in an academic
year. Even if the placement of students in the city's 123 government colleges
under the Centralised Admission Policy (CAP) is finalised by September 15,
classes will not start before October 6. It takes a number of days after
placement lists are issued for colleges to complete the admission process. Given
the starting date and public holidays, the academic year is expected to be
compressed to 130 days as against the desired 210 days. Why should the Karachi
students suffer?
The slow, cumbersome process has been the undoing of the
Karachi first-year students. Though the process began on Aug 5, submission of
forms was delayed because most of the admission seekers received their
matriculation transcripts late and could not submit their applications. How can
the selection process begin in a timely manner when the results were not
available on time? Furthermore, forms for the placement of candidates in
government colleges were in short supply. Many citizens contacted newspaper
offices to complain that several designated bank branches in various localities
of the city were running short of forms. With the entire system marred by
structural weaknesses delays have become inevitable. The slow-paced procedures
need to be rectified if students are not to suffer because of inefficiency. As
far as the admission procedure is concerned students generally rank their choice
institutions in order of preference and submit their transcript to the
government for evaluation. What should have been a fairly simple procedure has
become the bane of the system. The lesson? If results are not issued promptly
and forms are not made available in time, the process cannot be completed in a
timely manner. A shortened academic year will leave students struggling to
complete coursework, affecting the quality of education in the business hub of
Pakistan. With the large number of holidays - scheduled and unscheduled -
affecting the span of the academic year, one cannot take this matter lightly.
Holidays must now be slashed to salvage the academic year. Dawn
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| Education News | | Updated: 26 May, 2012 |
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