Trimester system- Making the most

COVID-19 has forced universities all the world over to think now more of “academic excellence” and “enhanced student experience.” One of the endeavors is to decide to switch over to the trimester system. However, trimester system should not be associated entirely with the COVID pandemic. On several earlier occasions, universities considered trimester system as an opportunity to revise their curricula, eliminate trails of pre-requisites, check overlaps in the course content and drop redundancies. They also wanted to provide more opportunities of interaction between faculty and students. The trimester model of education is not new to the world education, however institutions following a trimester system are still in minority. A few institutions like University of Wollongong (Australia) operate both trimester and semester calendars.

Difference between Semester and Trimester Models

A general opinion is that the trimester model system leads to the loss of classroom instructional hours as a trimester is of 11 or 12 weeks in comparison with the 16-18-week semester. On the contrary, it is the reverse. The trimester system offers more instructional time to teachers and students. Take for instance, if a 3-year baccalaureate program is enquired to teach 12 courses in a year with 3 class periods/contact hours per week for each course with 15 teaching weeks under the block schedule in each semester, it prepared its annual schedule for two semesters of each academic year as (12 courses*3 contact hours*30 weeks = 1080 hours). However, in the trimester system with, say, only 11 or 12 teaching weeks available and keeping the same 3 contact hours a week for each course, the instructional time in 3-trimesters would be (12*3*33 = 1188 hours). Hence, with just the increase of only 3 teaching weeks, the trimester model adds an additional 108 teaching hours. This additional instructional time would mean greater and more frequent interaction between the teacher and students. Besides the optimum utilization of the faculty, infrastructure and other equipment and resources, other benefits include reduction in failure rates and faster degree completion as fewer students would drop out or have backlogs, since they focus on fewer core courses at a time and they can also repeat a class in the next trimester, if needed. Moreover, by reducing the number of prerequisites they would be eligible for more advanced courses in the next trimester. The instructors would also have fewer students and classes to manage at a time.

However, transition from the semester to the trimester system is a challenging task. One of the significant challenges in this switchover is to overhaul the schedule of the existing program and restructure the courses in a similar order of importance and hierarchy. Further, a tremendous amount of time is spent on accommodating the existing students into the new system, along with their backlogs and specializations. The challenge for the faculty is not restricted only to changing their mindset but also to accommodate the course curriculum to fit with the trimester system, without disturbing the course learning outcomes already aligned to the program learning outcomes. This would require introducing new pedagogical strategies and assessment methods rather than cutting down the content.

Role of the faculty and the students

Institutions planning to switch over to trimester system need to be more focused. Both faculty and students must make concerted efforts to achieve productive results of this transition. A few faculty members have perceived that the trimester model disallowed them to devote the required amount of time they spent on preparing for two sets of classes a year in the semester model, and that the transition made them less confident in accomplishing their learning outcomes. However, a majority of faculty perceived the trimester system as breaking away their academic monotony, providing them more opportunities to experiment with innovative classroom teaching techniques and, last, but not the least, allowed them more opportunities to utilize the existing resources.

Among the students, the common perception is that they find less time for sports, extra-curricular activities and for their families, if more time is spent on studies. However, a few studies conducted on this issue indicate that although a few students perceived that they got less time for extra-curricular or leisure activities, but a majority admitted that the trimester system did not affect the time they spent on extra-curricular activities. They argued that the time perceived to have been ‘lost’ could not be accounted completely to be the time of studies. Secondly, a few motivated ones favored the trimester system as they enjoyed more opportunities to choose electives and also it was quicker to get through a course if it was not enjoyable.

Paradigm shift or a ‘strategic fit’

As a paradigm shift, several universities see the transition to trimester system as a strategic initiative to meet their goals and objectives. This varies from public to private educational institutions. A few of the objectives that could be achieved with this transition include:

1. meeting the rising cost of education as student’s tuition fee would inflow 3 times in a year;

2. providing higher salaries for faculty as student population is fast evolving;

3. revising the curriculum by deleting redundant courses and/or merging their contents with those of other courses;

4. checking on the failure rates and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning to be reflected in attainment of learning outcomes;

5. introducing new courses to meet the latest labor and market demands; and

6. utilizing optimally the infrastructure, equipment and other physical resources.

There are a few risk factors in the 3-trimester system. If a student procrastinates any course or drops out one full trimester, he or she is likely to spend comparatively more time and effort than what would have been spent under the earlier 2-semester model. This would also mean that the students’ grades would suffer and they face the fear of a burnout. Students who prefer to take summer course in the trimester model, would also have to give up other opportunities of travel, internships and gaining some work experience. A recommendation is therefore often given not to offer the summer term in the trimester model. Most universities do work on this suggestion and do not offer any courses during the summer months. They encourage their students to take up summer research projects, internships and field training. There are Earn-while-You-Learn programs that provide students the opportunity to earn some funds for their studies during the summer. Others can spend their summer time in the leisure or extra-curricular activities that they might have missed during the rigorous and clustered trimester system; or they can prepare in advance for critically important courses in the next trimesters to follow.