And for the youth every day is a competition where you have to come up as a winner and if you don´t, you are bound to face dire consequences, especially, when it comes to finding a good university abroad or getting an ideal job here at home or in a foreign land. [break]
Education, we must all agree, is such a tool which not only gears up one to go out and face the world but also is one of the most trustworthy weapons.
But does only getting into a college suffice? Definitely not. The marks count and so do the subjects students have chosen. Although there are already five other universities excluding Tribhuvan University (TU), a large number of students still keep TU in their first priority. The result of which is that TU boasts of the largest number of students and it is the one responsible for the faculties and the exams. Furthermore, it is also responsible for publishing the results of this huge mass of students.
How about students? Are they satisfied with the way TU is functioning? In this episode of ´chit-chat´ we talked to a group of bachelor level students at Premier College Baneshwar, which is affiliated to TU, to find out what they thought of the oldest institution and its operation.
Sarmeen Bhattarai says, “TU needs a serious change in all its functioning patterns. It is the oldest university in Nepal and that should the very reason behind a renovation.” All her friends agree. They believe modern day technology is changing every moment and TU too needs to adopt new methods of teaching and of evaluating.
“Our subjects are all theory-based,” says Niru Kafle adding to the discussion. “More practical classes would give us more practical knowledge.”
Apart from the Master´s level courses, most of the streams offered by TU are three-year bachelor level courses. These courses are mostly theoretical; only a few have practical classes.
“But there are a lot of practical classes for the four-year courses like BBA,” says Manisha Shakya. Unlike Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) has a total of eight semesters each lasting up to six months. Each semester has five subjects, except for the last semester which includes an internship in the elective major. The marks of the examinations are sent in grades, the total Grade Point Average (GPA) being four. The internal marks given by the college is 40 and the theory subjects are of 60 marks.
“TU has been giving priority to only BBA; their exams are held on time and the results too are declared shortly,” says Chetan Joshi. But not many students can take up this stream since the BBA is comparatively costlier than BBS. Joshi who is from a middle class family in Mahendra Nagar says his parents can´t afford to pay the tuition fees for BBA, which are almost double of the latter.
The discussion further headed toward the time duration between an examination and the results.
“The results of our first-year exams are published only before a few days prior to the second-year exams,” points out Manisha Shakya, looking rather depressed. She was of the opinion that without knowing the results of the previous performance one does not get an idea of how much effort to put in further.
“Only if I get to know that I have received low marks in certain subject (s) will I prepare better next time,” she puts in.
With everyone supporting her, these students had another aspect of the TU examination system that they felt needed an immediate change. After the results of a three-year bachelor-level course is declared, the students who are not satisfied with the marks are given an option of filling a re-totaling request forms.
“This makes no sense since they only re-total,” says Chetan. He was of the opinion that if students were not satisfied with the marks they obtained there has to be a provision of re-checking.
“Re-checking would be of no use either since we are not allowed to take a look at the answer sheets,” says Babita Pun. TU has no such provisions under which students are allowed to check their answer sheets. Although there was a case for which the national information commission had decided on allowing the students to check their papers, TU filed a writ against the provision and the final verdict is yet to come.
The situation now is rather confusing and unsatisfactory because even if a student submits an application for re-totaling, the results come out only after three months. Apart from this, students talked on the need for TU to remove the system of paying examiners on the basis of the number of answer sheets they check. This system, according to them, is making teachers check in a hurry with the motive of earning more.
Students also seemed dissatisfied with the evaluation system which, according to them, only seeks lengthy answers for good marks. Also the students discussed how the examinations get affected due to many political activities of students´ unions within TU.
“Although we can´t remove politics completely from TU, the authorities need to make sure that the exams are held on the appointed dates and ensure that a three-year course does not take four years to complete,” says Sarmeen and all the others agree.
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