Therefore, this list of 5 improvements I’ve compiled here have one thing in common: they do not cost a lot to implement, or they do cost, but are one-time investments. Some may even be implemented at almost no cost. Of course, if you got suggestions or disagreements, you know where the flame comment box is located: below!

Here goes:

#5: A campus forum

With the increase in the number of students at UoM, communication difficulty between students and lecturers is proportional to the number of students in the class. It’s understandable – if 50 students asked a single question each, and each took 2 minutes to answer, we get 100 mins of question time over 120 mins of lecture. Not really feasible. What can be done?

Implement a campus forum or a bulletin board, if you wish. Most other Universities (excluding Mauritius) have some sort of communication system, be it a forum, or their very own kind of system. The Student’s Union had the idea in their election manifesto, but I think it vanished afterwards, for an unknown reason.

There is no excuse. Forum scripts are freely available online. They are very easy to implement. UoM already has servers to host its websites. So where’s the problem? Download the thing, implement it and get some help to secure the script a bit.

It would be of great help to students. If students don’t understand how to use a forum, it’s easy to teach them how to do it. I believe there is already a database system for students at UoM (the one for university emails. Remember, you got an email when you joined). That same database could be used to auto-register all students.

I doubt it can get any easier than that. Now, if only people decided to get it implemented, instead of the idea just being a line in a pamphlet…

#4: A decent cafeteria

People already at UoM, have you noticed that the main cafeteria has been closed for the larger part of the academic year that just went by? I used to say that, as a veg, there was almost nothing for me to eat at the cafet. Well, now there’s absolutely nothing. I do know that there is a mini-cafet at Old Common now, but it’s not the same as the old one. At least it was bigger there.

Addressing complaints about the cafeteria is one thing the administration did right, but they should have considered looking for substitutes before kicking the actual caterer out!

For now, MIE and Mini-cafet will do the job. For how long? Don’t know. Let’s hope not for a second academic year. I wonder how tough it can be to put a notice in the newspapers for the interested folks that wish to take over cafet. According to the latest sayings, it seems that the MIE caterer has taken over the actual UoM cafeteria, which would be a good thing. Anybody can confirm that?

#3: Change that homepage!

I doubt I need to say more. The title should be quite explicit. But for others, I’ll give a brief rundown of why the UoM homepage needs changing. Consider it a list within a list. Firstly, for some reason, typing “uom.ac.mu” directly in Firefox yields a “Firefox can’t find the server at uom.ac.mu.” Go figure. You need to type the “www’ in front: “www.uom.ac.mu”. Wonder how many of you still type whole addresses.

Well, if you don’t want to read those 5 points, basically they are talking about grouping stuff.

1. Isn’t that menu incredibly long and unhelpful? Most of the links are not fit to be given space on the main page. The most interesting ones are Bulletin Board, that leads me to a 404 error. Module Directory, Regulations and maybe, Students Email. All of which could have been grouped under a “Students’ Resources” dropdown menu. The rest could have been stuffed in other dropdowns too. Mission and Vision? Come’on! Put that in “University” menu. Same goes for 3D tours, Benefactors, Campus Facilities, Photo Gallery, Newsletter, Vacancies!
2. Who, in his sane mind, would put a Calendar of Activities as a link! As if that was not all, who would put it in the footer? The final straw, the font is so tiny! Every other font on the site is tiny! It’s the Internet folks! People who use it usually have bad eyesight! Why not put it as an actual calendar? With dates. Like WordPress’ calendar! That would have been much more useful. Something that bolds the dates with events on them and give you an in-place popup when you hover on that date! Aren’t we in Web 2.0 yet?
3. If you open this dropdown, you get all of what you want. It’s actually one of the most useful things on this website! Do check it out. Don’t be scared by how long and crammed it is though.

   

4. Why is everything so crammed! Ahhhhrgh! Information overload! Why aren’t those grouped too? And LLC? MCE? You want people to guess what those mean? And I thought that “no acronyms in menus” was a given. Even with the cramming, there’s so much whitespace. The layout is a fluid one, so check out how it appears on my screen. Lots of whitespace is never a good thing. It indicates wrong usage of screen estate.
5. Remember 2? Now we got a Search link? Why not simply put the search box directly there, on the top right side where people expect it?

#2: Coffee is a must

Do I even need to mention that coffee and university students go in pairs? In short, we need coffee machines, distributors or whatever. We need coffee. A hot cup of coffee or chocolate would keep the majority of students awake during lectures. We’d also appreciate if we can get soft-drink distributors: you know, the machines where you stuff in coins, kick them a few times and they give you what you want? We need those. We are tired of crossing the whole campus from Engineering tower just to get something to drink.

Ask the major distributors in Mauritius if they aren’t interested in putting their machines there. I bet they will be. 3000+ possible customers is not negligible. Specially the small minority that’s addicted to coffee and cola. Hopefully, one or two per faculty isn’t too much. Vandalism? Place them in some corridor, or in front of some lab where lots of people go by. It should be enough security.

In the mean time, we still got coffee from the cafeteria. Problem is, the coffee is not portable! Portable coffee! However, the mess that plastic cups are going to cause is of concern. Got to find a viable solution for that. Garbage bins are not in short supply though, so it may not be a real problem after all. Paper cups are bio-degradable as far as I know.

#1: Realistic timetables please

I had to mention this one. Last academic year, my lectures started at 8h30 a.m. Leaving aside the fact that most of the time, nights are spent doing labsheets and assignments instead of sleeping and that it’s a real pain to get up at 5 a.m afterwards, getting to UoM at 8h30 is almost impossible considering the traffic jam. I leave home at 7 a.m and hopefully I’ll be at UoM by 8h30. I don’t live that far from campus. Now when I think of other people staying really far away, with two or more hours of travel just to get there (excluding return journey duration), I can only sigh.

What difference would it make to start courses at 9h? I guess not much, since when I was in Year 1, courses started at 9h. And it was all for the better. Last year, we had Summer Time on, and courses starting at 8h30. It was almost impossible to get there before courses started. Most of the time, people came around 9. It’s easier for us all. And 30 mins of added sleep… who can refuse that??

#0: Wikipedia knows no UoM

Zero? Yep, this one is a bonus for you. Go to Wikipedia and search for “University of Technology, Mauritius”. See the results. Next, type “University of Mauritius”. You see what I mean?

UTM got its Wikipedia entry, and UoM does not. No fair! And I thought UoM was supposed to be the main tertiary institution in Mauritius.

This article comes from GeekScribes

5 possible and cheap improvements at UoM

Hello readers. If you are a student of the University of Mauritius, then you probably know that the Student Union elections are currently taking place. This year, there are a number of parties and individuals, as you’d expect. Each of them is offering us students some hope to improve the campus life. In this post, I’m analyzing the promises of parties, whom many people are considering to be the biggest ones (or at least the two who are advertising the most I guess). These two are: Students Welfare, Students Rights and Students Power. Why they all include “students”? Lol?

Personally, I don’t know any of the ladies and gentlemen in those parties, except one guy in Student Welfare. So you can say I’m not biased towards anybody in these elections. Another issue about me: I generally don’t like politics and politicians. Too many lies. Too many false promises.

For the analysis of main points, I’m confining myself only to the Faculty of Engineering and general student areas. Other faculties are out of my league since I don’t know much about how they work, or the needs of the students in those. At the end, you get some ideas from me, which I think is important.

Let’s start. Student Welfare first, shall we?

As always, there is a pamphlet, filled to the brim with promises. Too much to read in fact. And too cramped. All the parties do this, so I don’t blame them. But hey, make your pamphlets easier on the eyes! ALL OF YOU PARTIES!

Academics: They talk about elimination of red tape. I say it’s impossible. Bureaucracy is invincible, immortal! You don’t kill red tape. Forget it. About past exam papers being placed online, it would be good and quite easy to implement. Just a matter of hosting a few PDF files online. Online means accessible over Internet, not just Campus Intranet like Dolphin is! That’s too lame! Make that area password protected if needs be, but it should be available via Internet.

Library: Update stocks of books? Will I see more recent editions? Considering the lame financial status of UoM, I doubt this is feasible. Let’s wait and see. Concerning extension of loans duration of material in reserve section, this is quite easy to implement. Just some policy changing. Creation of a Media Room? Nice. Hope people don’t turn that into a Cinema room!

Labs: More and better computers? Ahhh stop lying! All parties say that, and at the end, all the computers are still so damn slow! Same goes for “improve Internet connectivity“, “Better maintenance of hardware and software” and “Upgrade all labs with new equipment“. Fake promises here I bet. About the purchase of A3 printers, I saw “Buy more printers and free printing!”.

Sports and Leisure: LAN gaming during holidays? I’M IN! When do we have a LAN night at UoM?? “Increase lockers in Gym” should just be “Increase lockers EVERYWHERE! Lockers aplenty for all!”. “Increase availability of Sports Equipment“. Did you see the price of good quality badminton rackets and shuttles recently? No? Then go find out before writing such things. About the UoM Tracksuits, this would be good. We need more UoM-brand stuff.

Cafeteria: (It’s cafeteria btw, not cafetaria!) This is hopeless. I’m still waiting for more food. Specially more Veg food. But no. “Introduce a chocolate provider machine” which I bet will be empty every time I use it. We also need a mini-cafeteria near Eng Tower! With hot coffee. Hot coffee is a must for all college students.

Increase interaction: Blog space for interaction? NO! We need an official University forum which would regroup all faculties in one place. This would allow much better interaction between staff and students, but also between students of different faculties. This would remove the need for a monthly newsletter and suggestion boxes! Just post announcements and suggestions on the Forum! With a Forum, I guess I just killed most of the points in that section of the pamphlet!

General issues: More sitting accommodation. Yes! I say we turn the Crater into an open-air Cafe! With a Kiosk, tables and all. Regarding the bus shelters, they seriously need improvement. During rainy days, there is hardly enough space for 30 people, let alone the hundreds waiting for buses there! This is a real must. I’d also like the validity period of bus passes to be extended.

FOE: Yes, we need lockers. At last they saw the need for those. Congrats Student Welfare! We’d certainly appreciate the water and coffee dispenser you promise. Specially the coffee dispenser. I bet it would be empty by the end of a single class. Results being posted on ground floor is not really important, but appreciated. Climbing stairs is a good exercise by the way. However, about “new technology for labs“, I doubt it’ll ever happen as long as the financial situation of UoM is not corrected. The photocopy idea is a good one and quite feasible I think. Go for it!

That’s all for Student Welfare. At least for points concerning me directly. Quite a lot of promises, and a few which I think will not be implemented. Specially all those that would require money in one way or another. Unless the SU decides to use those millions they have stocked somewhere for good use, instead of organizing dance parties or whatever. Hell, dance parties in the cafeteria is a lame idea. It’s totally cramped now (with the increase in students) and it smells like a dumpster in there! Find somewhere else to do those! Gym?

Now, on to the other party: Student Rights.

General issues: Opaque door being replaced with translucent? Who cares! The door is never opened anyways. And seeing what you guys do doesn’t increase interaction one bit! Publish expenses monthly? LOL! Why not semesterly? Who would sit there and do that monthly? You don’t have enough work with your modules? The regular seminars will be good for students ending their course and looking for jobs. About the area near library, it really needs to be improved. During rain, there is too much mud there. And there is not enough benches. People are forced to sit on the rim of those tree-boxes. More power sockets for Laptop users in Raised Plaza. Nice one! I’d say “more sockets in lecture theatres” too.

Maintenance of toilets is a must. They emit such good fragrance my nose bleeds! The thing about finding talents is quite a good idea. But why do I get the impression that it will only be about singing? I guess this is only in my head. The ISKCON food stand will be much appreciated, provided the price of food is not too high. Setting up of a SU website? Not enough. As I said above, we need a Campus Forum! More chairs around cafeteria. Yes. Crater into open-air cafe. Just like Student Welfare. The monthly councelling by psychologists is not already available? I thought it was.

Library: Introduction of photocopy machines in Eng Tower. This idea is shared by both parties. I dunno who ripped whom though. “Restore old books for future use“? Lame! Engineering books expire after a while. Their content are updated in future editions, and so future editions need to be bought, not old editions being reused! Lol! Affliation of UoM library with other libraries would be good. We’ll get more books. “Setting up of a groupwork corner“. In Library? No way! Group work implies discussion! Discussion implies noise. Noise has no place in a library! I say, we open specific classrooms in all faculties for use for group works. It’s much easier to implement, and at no cost. “Increase bag shelves” is a must. People keep their bags on the floor, or on the crowded table nowadays. Camera surveillance for bags? Just give the security guard a view of the bags and these would be safe.

FOE: Supply DVD writers to labs. Just supply one or two writers per lab, and it’d be sufficient. “Allow all students to use CISCO labs” is good. This should be added too: “Allow all students to get tons of Virii from there”. Air conditioning needs to be reviewed in Eng Tower and ELT1. It’s either too hot or too cold in those. “Upgrade all peripherals and software in Lab 1.8“, although if this is a must, I smell a false promise again here. There is no money for that. For hardware at least. Upgrading Linux should be free.

Cafeteria: Change the deco? Who cares! It’s the food that counts. Hygene need to be improved though. Student Rights do not mention any Veg food.

Extra-curricular: Music club? There’s one? Outings for each faculty per semester? We already organize that among ourselves. So no need for your help here I guess. Unless you give free transport! Identify different talents. Repeat point here. Regular dance parties? Duh! Waste of time and funds. Specially when these are organized in the cafet. Second end of year party? There are two “end of year” per year now? LOL! It seems Student Rights puts much emphasis on fun and leisure. Too much I should say.

Sports: Buying of sports equipment. More lockers. Water dispensers. Again shared ideas. Again the issue of money not being available.

And finally, Student Power:

First of all, Student Power shares many points with the other 2 I already discussed. So here, I’m only discussing the points that do not repeat. Why? I’m tired of repeating stuff!

FOE: Same old thing about providing new, better equipment. Same answer from me: money. Two interesting points from them: site visits which I really think is important to know how the industry actually works, and what would be expected of us. Then there’s the “Engineering Archive” where we can access past projects and inventions. A sort of museum I guess. This would be both interesting and inspiring.

Senate: Semester-wise exam would be a good thing. We FOE students already do a sort of mini-exam at the end of the semester. They call it a “Test” and do it during “Test week” but for me, it represents an end-of-semester exam. So why not just call it “Exam” and make it count like an exam? So that at the end of the year, we don’t have to revise one whole year of content? Stupid system in my opinion. I don’t know many universities who do End of Year exams. Most do End of Semester exam. Just do your exam and finish off with a semester’s content. It’s easier on the students. So very good point here Power.

Internet connection in all classes is a bit stupid. Just provide campus-wide Wifi. It’s easier for us all. But for that we’d need a good Internet connection which unfortunately is not available yet. Improving sound system. Yes. Specially in ELT1. The system there can be considered dead. The Formal coaching system is great too. It would allow students to get help from 3rd years, and these would act like supply lecturers. Good! “Increase surface area of bus-stop“. Lol at phrasing it. But it’s a must.

Finally. “Covered overhead passage footpath from engineering tower to caravan rouge“. Not necessary. Provide a covered passage from near Pasrelle (Overpass near cafet) to Bus Stop. That area is totally uncovered. And coming from Eng Tower to bus stop, you have no way to remain dry due to that during rain.

Teaching and Learning committee: “Special tutorial provided by lecturers during revision week“. I never had any revision week till now. Lecturers used everything up to last week before exam to clear the syllabus, and at amazing speeds. WTF! “Availability of more GEMs“. Not bad. Wonder what they will introduce.

Website Committee:

“Having an up-to-date STUDENTS’ UNION content on UoM Website” and “Launching a 24hr operating STUDENTS’ UNION Forum for students“. AT LAST! One of them listens to me! But not Student Union Forum! Campus Forum please!

Computer Labs: Removing Pentium 2′ and negotiating new equipment. This would be tough to implement! Updating antivirus is a must! I’m tired of seeing my pendrive infected with virii!

Clubs and Societies: Wow! This party is really listening to me! They are promoting some improvement of existing clubs and favoring new ones. They also have LAN gaming, for which I’m in. But no PC at UOM will be able to handle LAN gaming. I wonder where they’ll get gaming PCs. Then there’s the dreaded “Radio Campus” which I bet will be filled with palab! Keep that away!

Among all the existing parties, Student Power seems to match my expectations more closely than the others. They already have most of the ideas I suggested in their plan. I just hope they implement them. At least they know what’s the difference between a blog and a forum! But alas, no veg food! (Do they all hate Vegs?)

That would be it. The parties seem to have copied ideas from each other and from past promises. Personally, I think Student Welfare seems slightly more promising. Their points are more realistic, and they put slightly more emphasis on studies, compared to Student Rights. I feel that Rights have copied a bit from the past year’s electoral promise, whereas Welfare have managed to come up with some innovative ideas. However, Student Welfare have an professionalism problem. The people in there do not communicate their ideas clearly (they go too fast) and thus fail to convince students when they come to classes. Also, they should dress a bit more formally and classy when they come to talk. First impression counts. I haven’t had the opportunity to see Student Rights or Student Power explain their points yet. So I cannot talk about their presentation performance yet. I’ll update when they do.

Now, here’s some ideas from me:

As I said above, we need a Campus Forum. This is very important to facilitate communication between staff, students and Student Union. Also, through the forum, it’s easier to ask questions. Each course could have a sub-forum, and each course would be a sub-forum of a faculty. These would fall under the Academics section of the forum. Then, when we ask a question about a course, the whole department has access to the question, not just one particular member or members of the staff. We then obtain a broader range of answers. There might be other sections specially for Student Union, or for plain fun and discussion. Like an Online Common Room (chat room?). The forum would also allow students of different faculties to know each other better. We might possibly learn stuff from other faculties, and get to know what their course is about. A forum would be quite easy to implement. Just get some web-space off the UoM server and a database, then just install a free script like PHPBB and secure it a bit to prevent spam and attacks. That’d be it! For people without Internet connection, they can access it via labs.

Now, another issue. Cafeteria. There is just not enough food there. What I’m talking about is food you can take and eat while walking or standing. Cuz who has time to eat! My courses often chain, with no breaks in between. There is not even a lunch time. So we just take a few minutes between courses to eat before going to classes. That’s why we need “quick foods” as I’d call them. One eg. would be the famous “Torsade” or “Pain au choco”, but those are not very stomach-filling. And the sandwiches are too tiny and expensive by the way. And what about turning the Crater into an open-air cafe? Just put tables and stuff there.

LAN gaming? I doubt it will be feasible. Why? Where will the parties get Gaming PCs to run the LAN games? There’s not enough money to buy decent PCs and even get a decent connection, and they plan to get Gaming PCs? Quite laughable I should say. Unless they want us to bring our PCs for tournaments. Then connect it to existing infrastructure there. That won’t be bad. Using a projector for broadcasting tournaments. Yaaay!

Finally, I’ll talk about extra-curricular activities. Personally I’m deceived by UoM. Most universities have loads of clubs like Music Club, Photography Club, Dance Club, Debate Club, Cookery Club or whatever club. Here, we hardly have any active clubs. Hell, the only club I see active is the Badminton Club! What about the others? Because of the lack of clubs, there is a serious lack of activities. Basically, you just come to UoM, study, chat a bit then return home. You don’t learn stuff which would be otherwise important. Eg. With a Cookery club, they might offer basic cooking lessons to those interested. But no, we don’t have any such things. I wonder why there is a lack of clubs. Is it because the procedure to create a club is complex? I dunno. But what I know is that SU should encourage students to form clubs, and provide information and help on how to do so.

That’s it. I think this is one of the longest articles I ever wrote. Please comment! Which party impresses you most? What would you want to see implemented at UoM? What can SU do to improve things? Let’s hear it in the comments!

Ps. Student Power’s Website is here.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Student Union Elections 2008: My views

Hello readers! I found 3 interesting articles in Le Mauricien newspaper of today. Guess what? They all talk about UoM, our dear University of Mauritius. Two of the articles do not flatter UoM, and the third is the interview of Miss Aartee Beekharry, actual president of the Student Union.

I’m sorry for the lack of quality of the pictures, it’s due to the crappy quality of my camera. I couldn’t get the article about the management of Cafeteria due to the page layout. Quite a good article, try to read it.

Alright, so my point is this: University has not even started, and it’s already receiving criticism! This is rather humorous, considering all the claims of “we are ready” already said by UoM management. Now, I’m eager to see what will actually happen when all the students flock in on the 11th. Let’s see!

As students, many of my friends and myself are not too reassured as to how the management will cope with the increase in students. It was estimated to have around 40% increase, but not this article comes and says that courses are canceled due to… lack of students. Lol?

Canceling courses is an abomination. Many students work through their HSC years with a view of what they want to do at Uni, and just as they set foot in there, they find their course canceled. Their options? Go to another university locally, or go abroad and add to the brain-drain of Mauritius. What about their already-paid fees? Who knows…

Another comical issue. If you read the article, apparently UoM needs to wait for orientation day to know “how many students registered for a course”. Ok, I may agree that O-Day represents the actual number of students that will attend the course, not those that registered and went elsewhere. (“mass registrations to land one uni seat, UoM as backup” strategy) But it’s still weird. I wonder what the “not enough students” mean. What’s the minimum number of students for a class to run?

Next, the cafeteria issue. I gotta agree, cafet sucks. No truly! There is nothing for me to eat there! (I’m veg). I’m not even sure if the “pain au chocolat” is actually veg, even if it’s mentioned on the window-display thing. There is still some vegetable pickles and bread, but still nothing much. There are loads of French cakes, gotta admit, but I doubt anybody will have a lunch on French Cakes, are they? (Napolitan lunches… *drool*). They could at least provide some good, hot meals. This would mean less students eating at MIE cafet, and more at UoM cafet. Let’s wait and see.

Note that the article actually deals with how the cafeteria is actually managed, not what food is served. You will see mentions of how the caterer and the VC are “close together”, and some other matters. Note that the complaints were made by the SU “viva voce” as commented by Le Mauricien.

The last article is about SU president’s interview. Makes a good reading material if you want to know a bit about what student union was doing, is doing and will do. Nothing really detailed, but ok, you still have some more info about SU. Happy Birthday SU, 37 years huh? (old!)

That’s the end of this post. Drop us some comments please, specially UoM students.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Jumpy start for UoM 2008 academic year

L’UoM se propose d’accueillir 4 467 nouveaux étudiants, soit 1388 de plus que l’année dernière. Elle offrira par la même occasion davantage de formations : 23 licences supplémentaires et sept maîtrises de plus.

I’ve been at UoM for a year now, and my year 1 class had around 110 students. The labs were nearly packed full. The cafetaria could barely contain the crowd during peak hours. Common room was often so full that there were no chairs or tables, so students had to find somewhere else to hang out. Same goes for Raised Plaza.

Now, I see this article about a 45% increase in the number of students at UoM and I tell this to myself: “Are our decision-makers insane?”

I remember doing my lectures in filled lecture theatres. We had to share computers in labs. Yes, this was University, and yes we were sharing Windows 2000 machines.

I really want to see where the administration plans to fit in all the new students. At the start of last year, I can remember students having to sit on the floor in ELT2 to follow lectures. Until Student Union noticed. As I was saying to some friends earlier, I believe classes will be held in the Crater now, and at random locations on the Campus. Maybe they will consider turning Raised Plaza into an open lecture-room again? The gymnasium could be used too! I bet at least 1000 students can fit in there for classes! And the Auditorium! Remember the “bring cardboards and write on your knees” story? No further comments.

Cela correspond au désir exprimé par le vice-Premier ministre et ministre des Finances, Rama Sithanen, lors de son discours du budget le 6 juin. Il avait souhaité que l’université de Maurice, ainsi que l’université de Technologie (Maurice), augmente immédiatement le nombre de places disponibles «pour que tous les étudiants qui se qualifient pour des études universitaires puissent être admis».

Our minister is really smart, is he? If a car can pack 5 people, he will cram 200 people in “so that everybody gets a place”. Why not build a second campus? Why must all the students be crammed like sardines in one campus? Oh yes, I forgot! Our Government is stringy. Ooops! I forgot: no politics!

L’Université prévoit d’augmenter le nombre d’étudiants en première année (+1 112) et en quatrième année (+266). Ceci représente une hausse de 41,3 % et de 67,5 % respectivement.

Great! A thousand more freshers added, as compared to last year. Just great. I pity those poor souls, and really wonder if they will be able to get the attention and guidance they need from their lecturers. In my batch of 110 students, I can say there were absolutely minimal student-teacher interaction, if at all. Save for some particular lecturers who really favoured interaction, while others totally evaded it. Can’t blame the lecturers! How do you give attention to 100+ students in a short 3-4 hours? I think it’s time to forget words like “World-Class Education” or whatever BS we heard before. Now at UoM, it’s “If you don’t understand, go help yourself.” because now, lecturer’s attention will be divided among even more students.

Reste qu’il faudra trouver de la place pour permettre à tout ce monde de suivre des cours dans des conditions optimales. Au niveau de la direction de l’université l’on assure avoir pris toutes les dispositions nécessaires. Comme l’année dernière, il semble que l’université examine l’éventualité d’avoir recours à des collèges des environs pour y tenir des classes dans l’après-midi.

Oooooh nice! Now we are going to see adults, probably at Masters level going back and using the tiny desks at College! That’s the University for you, and that’s all you get for paying your fees and taxes! Go back to college now! And go read the poetry scribbled on the desks while you are at it! Talk about “world-class education” again.

“Au niveau de la direction de l’université l’on assure avoir pris toutes les dispositions nécessaires.“. Let’s hope so. At least we get our time-tables earlier, unlike last year’s one-and-a-half-week lateness.

En parallèle, le conseil d’administration de l’université de Maurice avait décidé en début d’année d’augmenter les frais d’inscription (general fee) qui devaient passer de Rs 10 200 à environ Rs 14 000 pour ceux qui seront admis à la grande rentrée d’août et ceux qui passent en seconde année. A titre de comparaison, en 2005, un degré à l’université de Maurice coûtait Rs 8 500.

I see! More students = more $$$! That’s a devious plan! Go on, go on! Cram more, and totally press out the money out of your… crushed students!

Parmi les nouveaux frais introduits, l’on retrouve le «dissertation fee», qui concerne les élèves de dernière année. Initialement, la direction de l’institution de Réduit voulait le fixer à Rs 6 000 pour ceux qui préparent leur licence universitaire et à Rs 12 000 pour ceux qui sont en maîtrise.

A la suite du plaidoyer de certains membres du conseil d’administration, le montant aurait été coupé en deux, soit Rs 3 000 et Rs 6 000. La somme recueillie servira entre autres à payer les «dissertation supervisors», embauchés l’année dernière dans le cadre de certaines réformes apportées sur le campus.

Bla bla bla. I’m still waiting for those fabled “Assistant Lecturers”. My first year there is now over, and I still didn’t see any “Assistant Lecturers” around. Let’s hope those “dissertation supervisors” actually exist!

At last, it’s the end! I’m sorry for the heavy dose of sarcasm in this post, but it’s late, and I can’t really imagine more students being at UoM for the coming year. I wonder what the performance will be for this batch, specially for relatively tougher modules like Programming. Those “decision-makers” can’t just go on packing in students without providing the necessary facilities and hoping to make maximum bucks, and still dream about “world-class education”!

Oh well. Let’s see your comments now.

P.s. Just picture the Student Union-organized dance parties organized in Cafetaria with 45% more students added! Oh the sweat and compression!

P.p.s. Imagine the tiny bus-stop in front of Auditorium on a particularly rainy day with 45% more students.

This article comes from GeekScribes

45% increase in students at UoM next year!