Marks are a powerful weapon...

Student life these days is one of self imposed silence and restraint. Most students feel that if they criticize anything related to their academic work, faculty or the institute that they will be victimised later. Sometimes this fear is justified. Sometimes not. It all depends on the circumstances and who you might be offending (knowingly or unknowingly) in the process.

From the Faculty's' side, 'Marks' are the most potent weapon that they use for and against the students. Both the faculty and the students know the power of marks. Sometimes the students will go all out to gain higher marks over their peers. Sometimes the lecturers effectively use the marks to control the students. This is where the worst things can happen. Students who are most likely to be critical or question the status-quo have a good chance of getting into the bad books of the lecturers and face the consequences. Often the consequences can be harmful in one way or the other.

Some lecturers try to over play on the importance of marks and make the students 'marks-oriented' instead of 'knowledge oriented' from inception. This can cause unnecessary divisions among the students. This will reduce the opportunity for the students' desire the address important issues collectively. Often this is for the benefit of the faculty and the institute. It is a kind of 'Divide-and-Rule' method. This eliminates any collective resistance from the student body. This is detrimental to democracy and accountability.

Lack of accountability leads to frustration and mistrust. This can also extend to the academic work apart from assessment issues mentioned above. Students, when they find it difficult to trust the Teachers and the institute will lost faith in what they do. The standards will suffer as a result. They will try to complete the course merely to gain the Degree instead of focussing on knowledge and skills. When the products of an institute are not competent as expected, the industry will suffer. There will be a bad chain reaction.

When issues are discussed informally and in private you will find that the students are aware of the problems and what can be done to mitigate the same. However, they will chose to remain silent as they find the risks too high. Especially in fee paying institutes, rarely a student will want to gamble with high fees they pay and end up repeating exams or the years.

At present many virtual platforms are available for the students to discuss their plight. Often exploit such forums like Facebook etc,. to express their feelings. However the lecturers may be 'too distant' from such forum or not interested in what the students will have to say. The lecturers often try to play to 'both' teams; the 'Institute' (because of money and power) and the 'Students' (because of their conscience and power)!. It is doubtful whether this is possible at all. May be the answer for the lecturers, is NOT to play for any team, but the be independent and focus on academic work. It is not known whether such a position will be a pragmatic one.

Unit System of Education in Architecture...

Some years back the Architectural education system at University was transformed into a Unit based model. As a result the traditional 'End-of-the-year exam' was replaced with end of Semester exams. Since there are two Semesters per academic year, the students now have to sit for two exams per year. Often the total number of exam papers seems to be the same but sometimes more than that of the old systems. The biggest drawback in the unit system is that the students seem to be always working towards an exam thus missing the time and the energy to engage in anything but exams. This has completely robbed the chance of enjoying the university life, extra-curricular activity, engaging in any critical discourse or experimental study. This seems have brought the University to the level that of a normal secondary school in practice. The only difference seems to be that what is called a ‘Semester’ in the university system is referred as a ‘Term’ in school!

This looks almost like some big conspiracy to mess-up the quality of university education over cost. In the unit system the students can collect the necessary amount of ‘credits’ whenever they wish without missing on the year. In other words, a student can progress to the following year even if he has failed in the subject(s) in that particular year. As a result the student will be engaging in subsequent years’ academic work without attaining the necessary skills and the competence in the subject he failed in the previous year. Often students can be found studying in the final year, sitting for exams to pass first and second year subjects in order to complete the degree. Although it may be rather ‘easy’ for a final year student to ‘pass’ a First or Second Year theory subject , it must be noted that the student would have been lacking the same knowledge and skills in the previous years while progressing in to the final level. This looks a like a fundamental drawback in the system and is detrimental to the quality of university level education.