PESHAWAR, March 31: The Khyber Medical University (KMU) intends to start the semester system in its affiliated medical and dental institutions, taking advantage from the experience of the Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi which has started the semester system in its constituent medical colleges.

This was stated by KMU Vice-Chancellor Dr Mohammad Hafizullah, while delivering welcome address at a symposium on “Curriculum Development” here on Thursday, according to a handout.

The KMU had arranged the symposium wherein Prof Umer Farooq and Dr Rukhshanda Rubeen from the Dow University acted as facilitators.

A total of 36 participants including principals and senior faculty members of the affiliated institutions of KMU attended the symposium.

Dr Hafizullah said the current mode of instruction in the medical colleges had been in practice for the past 50 years. It is an annual based system where evaluation of the students is carried out at the end of the year. Because there is no evaluation and assessment before that, students have not much incentives and compulsion to study during the year and they only concentrate on their studies in the last four to six weeks just before the annual examinations, he maintained.

Prof Hafizullah said keeping in view the drawback of annual system in most of the institutions other than medical the annual system had been replaced by the semester system. In the semester system the course is divided into various modules. Both the teachers and students have to work according to a very strict and regular timetable both for studies and evaluation.

He emphasised the objectives of the symposium and thanked the facilitators from the Dow University. At the end of the symposium the participants agreed to work towards the implementation of the semester system in their colleges.

The facilitators shared their experience of semester system with the participants, emphasising that it would require the commitment of the faculty in implementation of the semester system and some improvement will also require in infrastructures in the respective colleges.