Punjab University vice-chancellor Arshad Mahmood has directed teaching departments to incorporate new changes in syllabus to convert it into curriculum so as to face the emerging needs of the education sector.
Presiding over a meeting of the teachers here on Thursday Arshad called for converting the syllabus into curriculum to improve the intellectual development of students as curriculum will lay down the percentage of lectures, tutorials, seminars, workshops, assignments and tests, etc, in an academic year to develop cognitive domain of students to ensure understanding, reasoning, originality and creativity.
He said, "present system of syllabus only covers the contents based on few text books, which leads to lecturing and rote learning, without developing intellectual faculty of learner. It has been planned to replace the syllabus with curriculum. This will certainly improve the quality and standard of education in Punjab University," he added.
Referring to the ingredients of the curriculum, he said, it (curriculum) offers planned learning opportunities, learning experiences and learning out-comes. Curriculum has four elements - first aims and objectives of the programme/course, second syllabus, third pedagogy or methods of transmission to include lectures, tutorials, group discussions, seminars, workshops, guest speakers, quiz tests, assignments, library day, lab/practical work, field work/industry visit, project, mid-term test, send-up test, research and internship etc and fourth assessment and evaluation strategies to determine learning outcomes.
He said the Inter-University Faculty Boards had been formed for bringing improvement in curriculum. To improve the academic performance, he said, an internal Peer Review System had been launched to assess and evaluate Punjab University Departments/Centers/Institutes/Constituent Colleges and Academic Administration/Management.
The purpose is to determine prevalent quality and standard of higher education in the University so that appropriate measures are taken to improve the academic management.
He directed all the faculty members, academic administrators and the students to cooperate and assist the Peer Review Committees by providing necessary data/record/information for progressive academic development and improvement of quality and standard of education. He hoped that new curriculum would equip students with latest knowledge and enable them to meet the future challenges.