This is with reference to Alaa Alghamdi’s article, “Universities must address research deficiencies,” published on Dec. 10 in Saudi Pulse.
Alghamdi has written a most impressive article and one that addresses a crucial area of learning in Saudi universities.
He may be surprised to know, however, that the system of rote learning is still encouraged in public universities generally and I know of at least one, which refuses to infuse its students with any sort of intellectual thought. Of course, this is not to say that the university has not produced individuals of high caliber, who are not making valuable contributions to society, but when asked about the system of education they have come from at university level, there is little they have to say.
While Alghamdi has raised the issue of scant published papers coming out of Saudi universities; and attributed this to the malaise of rote learning and absence of critical thinking, I would like to add that students’ intellect needs to be challenged at every level of their academic development.
Universities are reservoirs of knowledge but this is because intelligent minds are constantly at work in these institutes of higher education.
‘All men are born intelligent, but then life happens’ as the saying goes. But if this intelligence was nurtured from the very beginning in our nurseries, kindergartens, through the three key stages and finally at the secondary school level, our students would be less worried about their GPA’s and more interested in what they were gaining from just being in a university.
Indeed, GPA’s are important because they are a tangible proof of scholastic achievement, but surely there is more to education that just a statistic?
I think the questions we should be asking ourselves are that how are Western universities more intellectually challenging than Asian ones? What do they do or not do, which makes them superior to our systems of education?
Of course, they have integrated critical thinking from the very early stages of a child’s development. To take an example, just watch the Baby TV and observe how children are constantly being challenged by familiar and unfamiliar items; how situations are devised to make for predictive endings but even at that level, a ‘twist’ put in to create that interest, that uncertainty forcing the little mind to think why things didn’t go the way he thought they would.
So, as I am in complete agreement with Dr. Alghamdi’s views, I would like to say that if we are going to create and retain an intellectual repository at our universities, we should first start at grass-roots level. — Ozma Siddiqui, Jeddah
Impressive article
