The LMD System Experience as a Struggle Between the Educational Development and Reform PDF Download

Author: Nadia Idri
Publisher:
ISBN:
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Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Background: In this article, we are going to present some details about the educational reform at the level of higher education (i.e. University level) taking the case of the University of Abderrahmane Mira, Bejaia. After a year of its application, we aim at mapping out the problems we have met during the last academic year and trying to find out the possible solutions. Our study is carried out in the English Department at the university of Bejaia and the subjects are first year level students inscribed in the new applied system in Algeria, i.e. the Licence/Master/Doctorat system (LMD). Our ultimate objective is to find out how LMD students of English have perceived and lived their new experience under the reign of the LMD system. Moreover, our aim is to establish the link between the efforts done to make this reform a success and the encountered problems which made this task difficult at all levels. Purpose: The ultimate aim of this study is to try to expose the problems our university encountered during the 2004/2005 application of the system. We have tried to group these problems from a teacher perspective through the observation phase and from the students' perspective through the results we could gather from the questionnaire we have administred. Setting: University of Abderrahmane Mira, Bejaia, Department of English; Study Sample: The administration of the questionnaire was carefully held. All LMD students are 369 in number divided into 14 groups. Five groups contain 27 students each and the remaining number (i.e. 8 groups) includes 26 students each. Thus, we have proceeded as follows: We have selected 100 students randomly to give a homogeneous chance to every student. The time of this operation was about 15 minutes per group. Research Design: Descriptive; Findings: Before revealing the results we obtained from the questionnaire items and interpreting them, we need to expose the problems we have found through the observation phase we followed during the first semester. These can be grouped in what follows: (1) The students' vision of the system was restricted to its form rather than its content as they were not aware of its goals, objective and the positive outcomes it may bring. They rather perceive only its difficulty and the heavy responsibility they have when studying all that large number of subjects; (2) The huge number of the students made it hard to control the situation either administratively or academically. The piloting phase needed a more limited number for better conditions; (3) Students did hardly attend their tutoring sessions and again, this is more or less related to their ignorance of both the objective of these sessions and their importance as well; (4) Many instructors did not change the schedule and the lectures' contents in the subjects they teach though the reform needs more new methods and revised curricula which serve the needs of not only the system but the learners in particular; (5) Though the LMD system calls for more cooperation and coordination between the teachers, we have noticed that students have been taught the same module differently. So, the input they are exposed to was not homogeneous the thing that varied the learners' standard and, thus, output; and (6) The evaluation system during the last year was not homogeneous as teachers use different evaluation techniques where a learner obtained very elevated marks in one subject and very an extremely poor outcome in another. This caused even a great debate and discussion. After the statistical readings of the obtained results from the students' answers, and after the interpretation of their responses; we have reached a very rich conclusion which goes even beyond our two hypotheses. Conclusion: For us to lead this research project towards its completion we have gone through a full description of the concepts included in the LMD system and, then, we have tried to reveal what the students think and feel about it through the experience they lived just a year ago. After data collection, an interpretation and analysis of the students' responses have been analysed and computerized for a statistical analysis of the questionnaire. The results we got authenticated the two hypothesis and our objectives have been reached. That is, the problem we have stated was a salient contribution to identify the problems teachers and students lived. However, this does not mean that the evaluation of the system is negative. We need to diagnose the problems for a better achievement in the coming experiences and for a better result with coming generation. One cannot ignore the efforts our government spent to make this reform successful. On cannot further ignore the willingness our university has to take this heavy responsibility though the available means are very limited especially with the problem of the specialised teachers we need for tutoring and supervising our students. Citation: References 1. Commission des Programmes Universitaires. (2004) Cursus des Licences en Langues Etrangeres. Ministere de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche Scientifique, Avril 2004, Alger, Algerie; 2. Faculty des Lettre et des Sciences Humaine de l'Universite de Bejaia (2005). Guide d'Information sur le Systeme LMD (Licence-Master-Doctorat), Mars 2005, Bejai. Survey instrument is appended. (Contains 2 notes.).