Some lecturers are imposing "unrealistic burdens and crippling deadlines" on their students because they are so wrapped up in the demands of their own courses they fail to recognise students have other courses to deal with as well, according to a college registrar. Dr Dermot Douglas of Tallaght IT says proper co-operation between lecturers in college departments would greatly reduce the amount of anxiety students experience in the run-up to exams.
Greater co-ordination would mean students would not face a situation where "all the deliverables fall due in or around the same time" and would reduce "huge strains" on library resources and computing facilities.
Douglas was speaking at the conference on semesterisation organised by the Union of Students in Ireland and held in Dublin Castle last month.
The Tallaght registrar said one of the main problems with the division of the academic year in two was the amount of part-time work undertaken by today's students, which he described as "incompatible with the fast pace of the modularised semesterised system".
He said surveys carried out among students in Tallaght suggested "a distinct correlation" between longer hours worked to support themselves financially and poorer academic performance.
While students in the Britain are advised not to exceed a maximum of 15 hours part-time work per week, studies undertaken among students in Tallaght suggested the "break point" is 12 hours per week.
Students who attended less than 75 per cent of their classes also experienced academic difficulties, he said. Douglas nevertheless spoke in favour of semesterisation, remarking that "the emotion, misapprehension and suspicion which has dogged attempts to introduce the system has resulted in its benefits being obscured". Advantages include greater flexibility in course design and provision and easier mobility between courses and institutions.
Semesterisation and modularisation also helped create a more student- and employer-centred system of third-level education and allowed "rapid response to changing market trends".
The flexible nature of the system enables colleges to deal more effectively with "falling standards of applicant" by structuring remedial modules into courses, he added.
Douglas said students were sometimes burdened with an extra exam load under the semesterised system because of a misapprehension among some academics that end-of-module examinations should be the same as those that take place at the end of the traditional academic year.
"The bottom line in examining students under the modular system is that there should not be any increase in examination load over and above what is tolerable under a year-long structure."
