By now, most of you have heard that there are problems at the University of Mauritius and the most visible consequence is that lectures are only starting next week. This is because senior management has proposed some drastic changes one week ago which have caused myriad of repercussions throughout the university.
People have been talking about lack of space. This is only part of the problem. The bigger issue is the lack of money (as always…)
The solution proposed by the University is to merge all groups of students following the same module together so that the whole class can be taught by one lecturer.
I personally believe this is a good idea provided that (i) the lecture theatre be fully equipped (air conditioning, laptop, RGB projector…) and (ii) the lecture (cours magistral in French) be followed by a 1h supplementary lecture (travaux dirigés) taught by lecturers and consisting of at most 40 students a few days later. Supplementary lectures “give students the opportunity to discuss the lectures and/or additional readings in smaller groups” [wikipedia]
(Of course, lab sessions (travaux pratiques) will stay as they are)
The Computer Science & Engineering department will propose this idea of supplementary lectures to senior management tomorrow and I sincerely hope that the idea will be accepted as a means to save money while increasing the quality of our programmes however contradictory it may seem…
This is how things are done in other universities throughout the world. I see this as an opportunity to make things better at the UoM.
See you all in a few days in UoM 2.0! Hopefully.
An update
16 August 2007: UoM will stay at version 1.0 i.e. there will not be any supplementary lectures.
