Lecturers at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have been barred from selling handouts to students. The measure is to curb the practice where lecturers give out “ill-prepared pamphlets and booklets” which in the end discourage students from taking interest in personal research.
“If we are not careful, lecturers will offer incomplete handouts that have not been peer reviewed or evaluated by others in the academia”, a research fellow of the university, Dr Albert Amoah Saah, stated.
Speaking on the fourth day of the 65th New Year School symposium at the University of Ghana on Wednesday, Dr Saah stated “If students use only handouts for studies, it discourages creative learning to enable them to expand their knowledge”.
“KNUST has instructed its lecturers to rather guide students to look out for Internet addresses that enable students to obtain learning materials on their own”, he stated.
Dr Saah was presenting a paper on the topic: “ICT and distance education: Challenging the status quo and defining new areas; a case study of KNUST”.
The four-day event is being held on the theme: “Information and Communication Technology-driven education for sustainable human development: Challenges and prospects”.
Handouts discourage research
Dr Saah stated that the practice of some lecturers downloading learning materials from the Internet and selling them out to students did not serve the interest of the students.
“When lecturers give students handouts, such practice has the tendency to cripple the enthusiasm of students to do their own research work”, he explained.
He added that many lecturers often made a lot of money out of selling handouts and “students always believe that once they study such handouts they have a better chance to pass exams”.
“KNUST is encouraging lecturers to put their own research work into books and make them available in bookshops and publish them on websites”, he added.
Handouts are taboos
The President of the Accra Institute of Technology (AiT), Professor Clement Dzidonu, described the practice of teachers selling handouts at AiT as a “taboo”.
“Handouts confine students, and we have warned our teachers to desist from the practice”, he stated.
To address the challenge, he stated, the AiT encouraged its lecturers to resort to the use of e-learning to enhance teaching and learning.
