At the centre of eachcourse there needs to be a set of projects that the student is encouraged to tackle by proper direction and sufficient reward.The lecturer’s task would be that of project supervisor. The student would be perceived as someone expected to make discoveries, essentially by means of projects worked out in libraries and laboratories, and who proves him or herself by completing a series of assignments which will be appreciated for their novelty as well as for their competence.. The best means of getting into a subject is to try one’s hand at it. But for seminars to work they have to be organised – a task for the lecturer.

With this in place, lectures could be preserved as an occasional stimulant.With their lecturing gone, what do the lecturers do? Staring at a screen is a solitary activity.Group discussion, if it works, generates thought as intellects compete or co-operate. CD-roms, however, would allowdepartments to design and present programs that avoid the pitfall of providinganswers in lectures and offer an informative framework to a subject which makes the discovery of answers feasible. This would rule out the dependence on lectures.Modem technology has provided an effective substitute for the traditional lecture. Cassettes came and went with little use by university teachers. Universities should prefer teaching methods that promote critical thought and creativity, and ban methods that encourageassimilation and regurgitation. The defectives of the traditional system would propose that, while far superior to the new device, it requires urgent reform.Cogito, ergo sum may be a philosophical nonsense, but, as a means of expressing the aim of university teaching it is not a bad motto.

Or the seminar can become no more than a dialogue between the tutor and the student assigned to introduce that week’s topic, with the rest of the class a bored and passive audien ce, saying nothing and yawning prodigiously.Moreover, because course work has been permitted no part, or very little part, in assessment, students have little incentive to take it seriously. Consequently, the tutor is required to fill the void with an off-the-cuff lecture. The group tutorial cannot deal adequately with the student’s written work. For it to succeed, discussion has to be generated in the manner of a seminar.The principles upon which the seminar rests, of provoking thought through discussion and of making students orally articulate, are commendable The problem is putting them into practice Seminars often fail because students refuse to participate. Moreover, the tutorials and seminars did not necessarily work well.