Class-time utilization in business schools in Tunisia

Abstract

Tunisian Universities, like many other universities in the developing countries, do not adopt any textbooks and rather rely on classrooms as the main learning resource for the students. This study is concerned with observing what is going on inside the classrooms of five business schools. The collected data, relating to 75 randomly selected classes, show that the instructors are utilizing on average less than 55% of the time of the lecture for teaching purposes. From their side, the students recorded an attendance rate lower than 34%. The rate drops to 20% when excluding the students engaged in extraneous activities. These incredible figures raise serious questions about the academic learning of the students. 2016 The Authors.