Session jams are avoidable
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Syed Ashraful Hasan
MOST of the public universities in Bangladesh have a common problem known as session jam. Instead of taking five years to complete honours and masters courses, students need six, seven or even eight years to complete their university life. While their private university batch mates enter the job life, they might be still in third or fourth year. What a big loss of human resources!
Session jams have been prevailing in the highest educational institutions for many years. Previously, there was no session jam in Shahajalal Science and Technology University, at Sylhet and Khulna University. Now these two universities are also suffering from the same problem in varying degrees.
But the forming of a flexible and unconventional academic calendar can solve the problem to a great extent. In such an academic calendar, all such factors like students' or teachers' strike, hartal, natural calamity, etc., should be taken into consideration. The teachers and students should be very serious to follow it. They even should arrange classes on Fridays and holidays and should reduce duration of their various vacations to avoid loss due to factors like strike and hartal. The best example of this is the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University. It is observed that even when a strike takes place in Dhaka University, the classes of IBA are held at IBA hostel and, thus, the institute completes semesters in time.
Many of the students might argue against attending classes on Fridays and holidays. But they should be made to realise that they would do so to save time and cope with the competitive world. If they don't unconventionally attend classes, they will be losing valuable time and will be lagging behind in the career race. Even they should remember that in their working life, they may be called upon sometimes to work on Fridays . Appeal should be made to the patriotism of teachers that they should sacrifice their weekend for the greater sake of the students or for the nation.
When taking classes in private universities, the same teachers of public universities are found following an unconventional academic calendar. Why cannot they implement such a calendar in their own institutions ? It is high time for teachers and students to take necessary steps to use the time of the academic years to the optimum and there lies the most effective way of completing academic courses and syllabuses in time to overcome the ill phenomenon of session jams.
MOST of the public universities in Bangladesh have a common problem known as session jam. Instead of taking five years to complete honours and masters courses, students need six, seven or even eight years to complete their university life. While their private university batch mates enter the job life, they might be still in third or fourth year. What a big loss of human resources!
Session jams have been prevailing in the highest educational institutions for many years. Previously, there was no session jam in Shahajalal Science and Technology University, at Sylhet and Khulna University. Now these two universities are also suffering from the same problem in varying degrees.
But the forming of a flexible and unconventional academic calendar can solve the problem to a great extent. In such an academic calendar, all such factors like students' or teachers' strike, hartal, natural calamity, etc., should be taken into consideration. The teachers and students should be very serious to follow it. They even should arrange classes on Fridays and holidays and should reduce duration of their various vacations to avoid loss due to factors like strike and hartal. The best example of this is the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University. It is observed that even when a strike takes place in Dhaka University, the classes of IBA are held at IBA hostel and, thus, the institute completes semesters in time.
Many of the students might argue against attending classes on Fridays and holidays. But they should be made to realise that they would do so to save time and cope with the competitive world. If they don't unconventionally attend classes, they will be losing valuable time and will be lagging behind in the career race. Even they should remember that in their working life, they may be called upon sometimes to work on Fridays . Appeal should be made to the patriotism of teachers that they should sacrifice their weekend for the greater sake of the students or for the nation.
When taking classes in private universities, the same teachers of public universities are found following an unconventional academic calendar. Why cannot they implement such a calendar in their own institutions ? It is high time for teachers and students to take necessary steps to use the time of the academic years to the optimum and there lies the most effective way of completing academic courses and syllabuses in time to overcome the ill phenomenon of session jams.