Editor’s note – The author draws from personal experience to discuss how the semester system can be either a boon or a bane depending on how it is executed.
Author’s note – I got my undergraduate degree from a reputed University in Kolkata. I have written this article since I feel I had had the worst experience in regard to the semester pattern followed in such a reputed university. It conducts an entrance exam of quite an appreciable standard and admits the crème, only to end up treating them so badly that they often resort to inviting guest lecturers of seriously inefficient capacity who come and read out notes from dirty yellow notebooks (that were probably written when they were students themselves) and get much annoyed when they are questioned by any of us. They do all of this to deal with the deadline of the semester! Also often when we had a paper on Greece and Rome we had been deprived of studying Rome entirely on grounds of time constraint. However when I had absolutely lost faith in the system and moved to a different university that is of international acclaim, I realized it was way more efficient. Both these institutions are government sponsored and have been dealing with the semester system for quite a good number of years. But the difference in their dealing made me realize that the fault lies not with the system but with its execution and in my article I have tried best in a concise manner to argue the same.
I remember the first day of my M.A class when I sat tight lipped during the general introductory session while others had every possible thing on earth to talk about. At the end, the professor remarked “Thank you for your active participation and also ‘thank you’ to those who did not. I took the truth with a pinch of salt. However, the only difference I discovered that gulfed the rest of the students in my class from me was my background with the semester system followed during my undergrad days. With the recent hullabaloo about Delhi University (DU) planning to take up the semester system and frequent teachers’ strikes accompanied by it, I consider it to be a relevant issue that needs discussion as the Education ministry in India desperately attempts to bring in this international set up into the IES (Indian Education System).
Wonder why I had to sit tight lipped that day? Ever noticed your aunt and your mom making the same dish and you still liking one over the other? Well, from my experience I can tell you that if the semester happens to be the recipe, then the organization of its content is sure to be the proportions of its ingredients; and who doesn’t know that the right proportion gives you that perfect taste! So the first thing that calls for the success of this system has to be the proper arrangement of the syllabus within the given scope. This, it seems, has been a great challenge in the IES, especially in the institutes run by the government. While chronology, as everybody knows is indispensable to the study of history; I had the misfortune of graduating in History from a state university which followed the semester system where I had to whack my brain in attempts to understand the Aryans before I was familiar with their predecessors, the Harappans! Fortunately, the university where I am pursuing my masters happens to be one of the best in India, and has its academic sessions designed in the same semester pattern and yet it manages to put on a fine display. So that’s my mama’s recipe!
Time constraint has been another big factor. The colleges desiring a switch to this system have so long been operating with faculty and a formula that has been best suited for annual evaluation. But under the new system, with merely four months allotted for each semester, which requires completion of syllabus, evaluation of assignments and conducting of exams; students as well as authorities largely tend to face the problem of grappling with the changes. My undergraduate college which happens to be accredited by NAAC as A+ and considered to be a state of the art institution often saw teachers skipping relevant themes due to possible falling short of time. My M.A. program however includes just one or two hours of lecture each week and that more than suffices.
For those who argue that semesters do well in the long run, in spite of the fact that they have to go through the initial hiccups, I would like to bring to their notice the fact that even though my undergraduate college which has so far experimented with 12 batches of students, it is the students of the other colleges who follow the usual annual routine who command a greater knowledge base and fare better in competitive exams. I strongly believe semesters give you a space of ease. But it has been my experience that somewhere down the line, semester courses that are designed for undergraduate students appear to be too inadequate and too shallow to allow gaining a good command over the subject, let alone the opportunity to gain mastery. Under the pressure of time, students often turn into products of incomplete information imparted by teachers and seldom pick up the concrete. Very few students study for genuine knowledge, and thus most of them end up writing papers with vague understanding of what has been taught and asked in classes, thus turning the entire matter into a race towards scoring marks. Also, leaving aside any claims of discrimination, it has been my observation that semesters tend to work less in favour of social science disciplines, when compared to engineering and technology. Above all, it demands a huge amount of cooperation from all the participants for effectively running the system, which sadly is ebbing due to the deep inroads made by politics.
Wow, you now know that all of this comparison has been just to prove how your mom’s dish tastes better than you aunt’s! But on a more serious note, the semester system always enjoys an edge over the annual routine while taking into account the academic burden of being split into manageable halves. Nevertheless it has its own shortcomings and if not handled cautiously, it may turn out to be more a bane than a boon resulting in students like me, who repent the decision of studying in a poorly planned, hastily incorporated and incomplete education system. After all, none of us can get back those crucial years lost in figuring out how to save the embarrassment of sewed lips amidst sensible talking!
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