TAIZ, Dec. 19 — Yemeni University students are dependent on handouts sold by the professors as reference materials rather than other learning materials such as books or internet websites, says a recent survey on university education.
According the survey conducted by the Women's Forum for Research and Training (WFRT), this dependency limits the students’ ability to learn and they only study a selected number of handouts to pass the exams.
The survey which was published a few days ago, covered three main governorates around the country and featured input from university students, professors and activists.
The survey concluded that universities have promoted the reliance on bound sheets specified by the instructor and sold in the university photocopying centers. The prices of the handouts are supposedly agreed upon between the instructor and the photocopying centers. For students in Yemeni universities, whether public or private, these sheets are the most significant academic learning tool. Books or other references are an exception.
This dependency is now spreading to other educational institutions, says Mundher Ashaq, professor and chairman of the sociology department in Taiz University. He explained that using handouts is cheaper for the students considering the high prices and scarce availability of academic references, especially in English. Using these sheets allows students to focus on certain chapters and on the information the instructors give importance to, and hence helps them pass the exams without having a thorough knowledge of the subjects. Many of the handouts are the subject's summarization the professors make for the subjects. Some of them are hand written and others include copies of pages from reference books.
The group behind the survey raised concerns over professors supposedly earning an income from these handouts- both at the expense of the students’ learning and copyrights.
About 85 percent of the students surveyed admitted to using only the handouts which they buy from the college photocopying centers. Some students have even given up taking notes, as some of the hardworking students learnt to take good notes and then agree with the photocopying centers to promote the handouts to students. The profit is then shared between the center and the authors of the handouts.
In some colleges, the survey discovered that some of the bound sheets cost as much as the reference books. Even then, students would rather buy the handouts instead of the books with hopes of doing better on their exams.
Around 58 percent of those surveyed complained that the handouts are expensive and cost often more than just the photocopying price. As a result, some students borrow the handouts and photocopy them outside discretely because the subject teacher would become angry with the students. Over half of the students indicated that the instructors are the primary beneficiary of the reliance on handouts and that the instructors would do anything to make sure students refer to them as their main source in studying. It is worth mentioning that many surveyed students declined to comment on that claim.
Since the profit is shared with the photocopying centers, 42 percent of those surveyed students said that the centers' owners are also beneficiaries of this education methodology.
Some university instructors order the students to buy the handouts as they are the main reference material for the subjects. Quizzes and exams are often based on the handouts, claims the survey.
A smaller group of students yet somehow significant, around 30 percent, decided to rely only on their own notes that they take in the lectures because of the increasing prices of handouts.