There is no short route to education

kanpur: here's a remedy for tense examination nights when memory goes faint during last minute cramming sessions. the `short-summaries' and `made-easy' books might just be the answer most students are looking for. naturally, this leads the business of short summaries published by enterprising publishers. these short summaries are already flourishing in the book market, more so with university exams just round the corner.however, these short cut methods of study prevent students from going through with their curriculum text books. educationist too believe that cramming of these stories sends a bad message among students and this in turn churns out a plethora of half baked graduates and post graduates. the chhatrapati shahu ji maharaj university, in order to maintain relevancy of higher education had made several effort during the last five years in this regard. it had revived its curriculum for post graduate and graduate classes and even changed the pattern of examinations. the university also changed its curriculum for post graduate classes a few years ago. later, the university authorities changed the entire pattern of examination papers in 2001 by designing papers with multiple choices, short and long questions so that students could be prevented from cramming to clear exams as that involved the entire text book. however, the revised syllabus itself had created complications, especially for post graduate and graduate (science) students because even subject teachers had failed to complete several important topics. a senior professor of apg college, dr amar singh kushwaha, said, "the university has in fact not revised the curriculum at all but has just placed post graduate level topics for graduate classes. this only confuses the students further." he also raised the question as to "how is it possible for a teacher teaching graduate classes to suddenly start teaching post graduate level topics?" moreover, teachers were also bound to complete their course within the limited teaching sessions, he said. however, the main aim of the university was to change the curriculum and later the examination pattern so that the students upon completion of the entire course actually managed to gain something or some form of higher education. reality, however, was quite the other way round. here even the teachers remained blissfully unaware of the latest changes. was it possible then for them to impart something to the students. another reason for cramming short notes was that the better part of graduate students were busy taking coaching classes for competitive examinations. the obvious preference was for these exams over ones that the university held. most students believed that even if they failed to get through any where they would at least have post graduate degrees. talking with the times news network, secretary of the federation of up university and college teachers' association (fucta) dr l n pandey opined, "the modifications in the curriculum does not mean that the authorities can just shift around topics." he pointed out that the varsity authorities should add interesting topics to the curriculum which could enable students to attain greater skills and put them to better use for employment after completion of the course instead of the mere degree which would otherwise be theirs anyway.