Perceiving the Paradigm of Semester System and the State of Affairs in Running it in Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan

Abstract

The semester system is, now a days, prevailing in almost every country around the world due to its more effective in conducting the process of teaching and learning. As with other systems, this system also has a specific philosophy that gives it a certain shape of semester. If it is to run with its genuine mode, then its philosophy should be understood. The ideas that work behind its functioning are flexibility, freedom, continuous assessment,relevant principles of evaluation and grading, self-assessment, and monitoring. In Pakistan, this system was introduced without genuine homework. Most of the teachers and other authorities who designed and developed this system were not trained on the semester system. The dominant number of teachers who are teaching in this system have studied under the annual system, and after inducting them in the semester system, no reasonable training was given to them. As a result, they do not know how to develop syllabi, what could be the teaching and assessment strategies suitable for the semester system, and how to utilize the concept of a credit hour to involve the students in continuous learning. Phenomenology, as the major approach, has been adopted to analyze the documents,observation, and discussion.