Nothing to teach: Undergrad students clueless about courses

Despite colleges’ affiliation with QAU, no signs of new curriculum.

Students studying in 16 graduate and postgraduate colleges affiliated recently with the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) have nary a clue on what to study.

Even though the QAU had approved the affiliation of these 16 colleges in a syndicate meeting in spring, the new syllabus has still not been prepared.

With the college session 2012-2014 commenced, instructors for undergraduate classes are clueless about the syllabus or the course outline they are supposed to follow. They are equally clueless about the pattern of examination papers. According to official sources, these colleges switched their affiliations to QAU because the University of Punjab was “over stretched”.

But the move does not seem to have helped. One professor said, “The new syllabus isn’t ready and we don’t know what to teach.”

He felt that the involvement of the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) in the preparation of the syllabus is what is causing the inordinate delay.

The appointment of “inappropriate” experts to the Board of Studies (BoS), tasked with preparing the syllabus, has not helped either, according to the professor who did not want to be named.

A senior professor said the qualifications and designations of some co-opted members in the Affiliation Committee of BoS were altered for them to meet the criteria. For example, an assistant professor is actually an associate professor and a few college teachers have been mentioned as Doctors when they do not hold Ph.D degrees.

Two co-opted members in each discipline are college instructors, while the rest of the members are from the QAU and have no experience or background in teaching undergraduate classes.

Federal Government College Teachers Association Spokesman Tahir Mahmood said, “Communication between the university and colleges is nonexistent, which is delaying the process.”

Currently, the CADD is dealing with nearly all the educational aspects while colleges have little say regarding teaching courses and introduction of new disciplines, he added.

CADD Joint Secretary and Affiliation Committee Chairman Rafiq Tahir said there is a uniform syllabus for undergraduate courses across the country and colleges were told to follow the Punjab university curriculum for now.

“We will prepare model question papers by next year. Members of [BoS], which number 230, were nominated by college principals and 98% of them are PhDs. All allegations to the contrary are incorrect,” Tahir said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2012.