Completion of Syllabus:Who is to blame for half-finished Syallabus?

Quality education is what all students need for a successful career in their lives. Everyone wants to score good grades in his/her college life. However, not all students are able to get the marks as expected. Even the job and other opportunities in future are affected by the scores they get in their college results. While the lack of hard work from the side of students is one of the major reasons in not being able to get good scores, the teachers and college itself are equally responsible for it.

Education is negatively affected when teachers are unable to complete the course in scheduled time.

Political influence
It would not be much of hassle both for students and teachers to complete the courses on time had there been political stability in the country. But unstable political system of the country has influenced the education system of different universities in our country.

Bal Bahadhur Thapa, Professor at Tribhuvan University Central Department of English opined, “Time and again, students, mostly of the government colleges, declare strikes to make the college administration listen to them and their demands.“

As such the classes are disturbed by such strikes leading to delay in completion of courses. Assistant Professor at Kathmandu University School of Management (KUSOM), Ram Biresh Mahato discourages the involvement of students in administrative work of colleges. “Students' involvement in administrative activities of college like in policy-making is not good. Formation of different groups by teachers and students just to get their wishes fulfiled has created disturbance in the study schedule of colleges,“ he said.

Inappropriate course design
Meanwhile, there are some who blame the inappropriate design of the courses as a reason for colleges being unable to complete their course on time. Nirmal Bajracharya, Professor at National Open College, Sanepa affiliated to Pokhara University shared, “Allocation of time for the given course is not sufficient which creates difficulty in completing the course on time. And working as per the planned schedule is quite not viable due to the unnecessary public holidays and students taking time to understand the course.“

Irresponsibility of students and teachers
Shradhda Suman Jnawali, who recently completed her BSc from Kathmandu University, agreeing with Bajracharya said, “Holidays make students lazy and they hesitate to go to the college one day prior and later to the holidays.“

Prof Thapa blamed the habit of bunking classes on most Fridays and neglecting their studies of +2 level students as other factors responsible for it.

But for Bishnu Maya Rai, MA IInd Year student at TU, Kirtipur, even the teachers are negligent about completing the whole course. According to her, the teachers do not complete the entire course. Instead, they convince students saying that there will be choices in the exam question papers and only 40 to 60 per cent of the total courses are completed within the given time frame.

Sangita Maharjan doing her thesis in MA IInd Year from Sagarmatha Multiple College, Dillibazar affiliated to Purbanchal University complained, “Teachers are involved with different organisations besides teaching at college. And they are absent for long periods of time which obviously hampers our studies.“

Dismal future of students
While the teachers remain unaffected by incomplete courses, students are the ones who get affected due to the above mentioned problems. Rai shared, “Though a student may pass his/her exam with good scores, they are not confident enough while pursuing their career in the days ahead as they do not get proper guidance from their irresponsible teachers.“

Echoing a similar view, Maharjan added, “When the course is not complete and there is no right guidance from the teachers, the students have to face a stressful situation during the time of examination.“

Jnawali informed that due to teacher's weakness in giving proper guidance ,the students get confused and become unable to figure out the proper topic to study What should be done?Every problem definitely has its solution, which applies to this case also.Bajracharya opined that the new ways of learning -use of Internet by the students to solve their problems -can be used to make teachinglearning process effective.

Students feel a strong need of proper communication and a strict checking of the attendance of both the students and teachers. Both the teachers and students agree on the need of supervising the colleges by the authorities concerned to inspect whether the college is fulfiling its duty in a proper way or not.

Source: The Himalayan Times,2 November 2011