A few weeks ago, I tweeted some random thoughts on the current teaching methods in higher learning institutions, and the reactions on my timeline were all very angry. This could only denote that I wasn’t the only one seeing that our system is doing a bad job, educating us the wrong way.

With the prerequisite on the market and available online resources, anyone can literally teach themselves. But why do we in-debt ourselves or pay enormous amount for university?

The point of going through this higher learning process, I believe, is for students to be transformed into competent professionals. By providing them with advanced knowledge to solve real-world problems and earn a living, hence turning the knowledge into a profession. More to that, universities are supposed to equip one with a certain moral code and work ethic that would distinguish the graduate from some random person who happen to have just the skills. Therefore, a graduate would be preferable on the job market.

But the problem is, in my experience, the lecturers in most of our universities focus on marks instead of knowledge and real-world application. This can only be the result of having inapt lecturers. I am not saying that they are unknowledgeable – of course there are several more reasons – but most don’t even seem to be aware of the issue in the first place. To find one lecturer with multiple classes (say from year one to year four) is also absurd. It’s harder to ensure delivery of quality material.

Higher learning should really be higher. The more we get lecturers who are well-equipped and motivated to lead students through a more effective process of learning, the more we get competent graduates. And for this to happen, we need to allow them to teach subjects they really understand, topics they have researched, hence it would protect students from experiencing lectures that feel like the old bedtime stories that leave the classroom clueless.

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