Student overcrowding crisis at PAAET
‘No solution presented so far’
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 3: The new academic year at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) is fast approaching and the crisis of student overcrowding in the College of Basic Education is imminent in view of the fact that about 1,150 students were admitted to the departments of library science and education technology for the first semester only, without the inclusion of internally transferred students or those from external colleges, reports Al-Rai daily.
Hassan Bouabbas, a doctor in the Department of Library and Information Sciences, raised the issue with the approach of the school year – given that no solution has been presented so far. Neither is there any move by the responsible authorities to resolve the situation he described as catastrophic. He explained that 1,150 students were admitted in two departments only, which is equivalent to 18 percent of the total admission in the 15 faculties of Kuwait University, not to mention numbers that will be transferred to the college both internally and externally.
He said “all this is for the first semester only and the reason is that PAAET accepts low percentages starting from 75 percent. He declared that most disciplines are closed, and out of 13 disciplines, the number of ‘open disciplines’ are up to 5 or 6, including Music Education for which nobody registers. He added: “They do not want to open specialties in order to prevent accumulation of students like we have. It is better than the presence of 100
students in the section, because if there are only 50, it is justified for students and teachers at the same time”.
As for the negatives that will face the teachers and students due to the expected huge numbers, Bouabbas pointed out that “the situation will cause the number of those waiting on the queue of employment to increase. He wondered which libraries in Kuwait will employ thousands of graduates four years from now, stressing that the lecture theaters are limited as well as the number of faculty members, while some students are forced to stand in the theaters due to insufficient seats.
He pointed out that scientific output will be very weak, because the teacher
will need more than 10 minutes per lecture to record attendance and absence only. “How will he find time to explain and provide students with required knowledge”, he asked. He noted the exclusion of PAAET from public universities law is a clear deficiency in this law, and that the Commission is now suspended, not to mention that some articles of the law are marginal, bad and unnecessary.
He added: The applied education should be separated from the training institutes, because applied education trains students to obtain bachelor’s degree. He explained that trainees who graduate from the training institutes, which may be a period of two years training, get the same rewards and leave.