Has the Increased Enrollment in Universities Degraded the Quality of Education?

  

Date Posted: 11/20/2013 1:30:55 PM

Posted By: wishstar  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 7507

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I remember hearing of stories from some of my lecturers on how life used to be in the university back in the days. When you commanded respect in the society, when the government really cared about your well being, and most importantly, when the quality of education was high. Back then, there were no private universities and those enrolled in public universities really deserved it.
They were those who passed highly in their secondary education; those who today are referred to as government sponsored students. In those days also, the population was not huge as compared to that of now and as a result, only a few people were lucky to go to the university. With this scenario, the lecturer to student ratio was okay unlike today where we see one lecturer handle more than even 70 students!

Comparing how education was back in the days in the university and nowadays, the difference is highly visible. While in the past students from the university commanded a lot of respect in the society, today, students are seen to perpetuate moral decay. Furthermore negativities such as exam cheating, drug abuse and questionable degrees have emerged and keep increasing by the day.
Also, almost everybody nowadays can join university, regardless of what grades he got in high school; this being so long as finances are available. With the previous statement, there are now two types of students; government and self sponsored students, and as a result, the number of students in the universities has drastically increased.

Apart from the students in public universities increasing, there has also been a rise in the emergence of private universities and colleges. Some of these private institutions have been approved while some are yet to. Though they are of benefit to the society, some

of these institutions do not offer the quality of education required. As the number of higher learning institutions keep on increasing and thus increasing enrollment of students, quality of education is compromised.

Why is this so? There are a number of reasons to justify the statement.

First, the increase in university enrollment has seen some institutions being only interested and concerned with money and not necessarily on the quality of education. Such universities have corrupt leaders who enroll students without necessarily considering the available facilities. So long as the student is able to pay school fees, then he is good to go. In the end, facilities become insufficient to cater for all the students. In the end, students are not able to learn to their fullest due to the resources and facilities being limited.

We also see that some of these students that come as self sponsored students are not necessarily serious about learning. They end up using cunning methods to succeed in their exams since, in the first place, they weren't interested in the course they chose but just did it for the sake of getting a job. They end up being impersonated in examinations just to pass in them or use other exam cheating methods. As such, they may end up succeeding but don't at all understand what the course they were pursuing entailed.

The mode of assessment has also changed to the worst. The days when two or three assessment tests and a number of assignments were given are about to disappear. These days, one assessment test is seen as enough coupled with one assignment. These assignments are not taken seriously by students with most of them copying from one another. Some lecturers also make the work of students easier when they demand that the assignment be done in groups, with some of these groups consisting of ten or more students! For the sitting continuous assessment tests, the students are many making it difficult for proper invigilation to be done. As a result, cases of students copying and cheating are widely experienced.
All these degrades the quality of education.

For theoretical courses, increase in student enrollment doesn't have that much of an impact as compared to courses which are practical based. Though the number of students in courses such as engineering and medicine, those that entail a lot of practical work, still have less enrollment than other courses, the number is unmanageable. The number of students have surpassed the available resources in some institutions that practical work is not efficiently done. As a result, we see engineers who have knowledge but cannot design anything. Even for some, fixing a light bulb is a problem yet they know the principle that makes the light bulb. This is simply because the practical courses have been partially transformed into theoretical courses, reason being an overwhelmingly unmanageable and a large number of enrolled students. Keeping with the practicality of knowledge, the increased student enrollment has resulted into some technical institutions being converted to university colleges.
This brings about deficiency in technicians, who have an important role to play in the economic growth and development of a country.

Apart from these problems that result to lowered quality of education as a result of increased enrollment, other minor ones include:
1. Lack of concentration by some students as a result of them being in the backbench of a big lecture hall.
2. Difference in understanding levels as a result of students who passed highly in high school being mixed with average students.
3. Inability of the lecturer to recognize all students in his class and as a result, some students see this as an opportunity to skip some classes.
4. Impersonation in exam room as a result of some students not being known by lecturers.

It is good that people want to learn but this increased enrollment of students should not see the quality of education being lowered.
To ensure this, the following can be implemented;
1. Increase the facilities to match with the number of students.
2. Ensuring that the lecturer to student ratio is okay by employing more lecturers.
3. Retaining technical institutions and start from scratch in the building of constituent colleges so as to ensure a good number of technicians are trained.
4. Use the money generated from self sponsored students to improve the facilities and resources of the institution rather than squandering it.

In the end, we just have to realize that quality is better than quantity!

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